The Lieutenant and the Assassin
by Tobias Corvinus
Summary: While Michael Beckett was being stalked by Alma through the hospital, Keira Stokes had her own unwelcome follower. Will try to keep this as true to the games as possible but it might verge into AU.
1. Interval 1: Awakening

Assassin Unit 237 had been asleep for so long stuck in a never ending darkness in its stasis tube. Then, in his darkness had come the voice. A whispering, creeping voice, like trailing vines inexorably cracking concrete it held a seductive lure in its dark promises. That voice had helped him had helped him ignore the other voice, the one that was a boring monotone of orders, orders, orders. The first voice couldn't awaken his physical body though, that had been up to the second voice, and eventually it had come calling, ordering him to stand and fight and drive intruders from the base.

He woke up, but something had changed.

_Armacham Technologies was no longer his master._

His genesis was a spray of blood as he killed the fragile men in the white lab coats. They died quickly, only having time for a look of surprised shock as their creation killed its makers. There he had discovered the first Joy, the joy of killing, of conquering and overcoming the opponent, emerging victorious in a life-or-death struggle. He would have stayed among the corpses all day, but the voice warned him, telling him others were coming, others who would not share his joy, would try to take it away from him and punish him for what he had discovered. The voice filled his head with images of angry men with guns and biting bullets and his bleeding body convulsing on the floor of the lab. So Unit 237 left, escaping easily through the ventilation system. He luxuriated in the feel of powerful muscles, genetically tailored to be the strongest, the bones re-crafted with special material, making them lighter and stronger than human bone and flesh. The powerful pulse of his heart as he ran blurring through the facility, the steady action of his lungs breathing, breathing, breathing.

_It was glorious._

But he was not the only who had been awakened. The others, the failures, had been released from their cells. Clawing, drooling, screeching over everything, unable to tell friend from foe, trapped in their destroyed minds. They'd been men once, trained to have been his commanders, the commanders of his brethren, and destroyed in the process, by the process. Their telepathic commands whispered in his head, weak voices that he easily brushed aside but…

_They annoyed him. _

So he killed them, stalking them from the shadows, leaping from the ceilings. Sometimes his hands broke necks; sometimes he used the hidden blades on his gauntlets. Sometimes he dropped the cloak entirely and took on three or four at once, pushing his limits, seeing how good he was. Unit 237 learned he was very good, then men in dark combat suits had come and he'd gone after them.

They were more fun. The men were smarter than the failures, they carried guns and were well trained, they worked together in squads, and that was all well and good, but there was something that made them even more fun.

_The men felt fear. _

Oh not at first. Their guns and armor, the shining lights that banished the darkness, these made them confident, made them brave. Then one would disappear, one would walk into a dark room and never come out. Some would take the wrong turn and never backtrack. The men would pretend they weren't afraid, they'd bluster and wave their guns around, and that too was a little frustrating. All he wanted was a bit of honest panicking, was that too much to ask?

So he placed one of the bodies where their bright, clumsy lights would find it.

_That did the trick._

Unit cohesion broke down, the weaker ones broke away and stumbled towards exits, the smarter ones stood together and obeyed orders.

_The ones who panicked never made it to an exit._

But he was beginning to grow…not tired…bored? Yes, he was beginning to grow bored. He'd killed failures and men with burning flamethrowers and thundering shotguns and compact submachine guns. The voice that had first drifted into his sleep was gone now, faded to an almost silent whisper, something else had caught its attention and now it wouldn't talk to him, it just kept whispering _found you found you found you._

_Even the voice was beginning to grow annoying._

Yet Unit 237 continued his hunt, if only for a lack of anything better to do. The men had left his floor, now only the failures lingered. So he stalked one, through the various rooms, enjoying the feeling of power, content in the knowledge that he was undetectable. But he would only delay the kill for so long. He'd decided to bring the game to a close when he saw her.

Walking down the corridor, her flashlight showing the way, a barely perceptible tremble in the beam that only his enhanced senses could see showed that she was on edge. He readied himself for the kill, and then she stepped into view.

Unit 237 had never seen a female before. The voices, the boring voices that he'd heard in his sleep had taught him how to kill from the shadows and run silently through the darl, the best place to stab someone and all the weaknesses of the human body. They'd never said a thing about women.

Long blonde-brown hair tied back in a ponytail, a lightly dotted face-_freckles, they're called freckles-_ lightly tanned skin and lips compressed in a firm line of determination, eyes a deep blue so different from the scarlet red blood that came from his kills. The assassin was intrigued; he enhanced the visual sensors in his visor, studying this fascinating new discovery.

She was so…slender. Her arms were muscled but small, and her chest, what was wrong with it? The region around her upper torso appeared to have undergone extensive swelling. Perhaps she had a defect, some anomaly in her genetic code to account for that, and perhaps her other physical shortcomings as well?

Maybe she was like the failures, or Unit 237's weaker clone brethren. He adjusted his weight, making no noise, and yet he was surprised when she swung her light towards him.

"Hello?" She took a firmer grip on the submachine gun, "Is anyone there?"

Unit 237 stayed very still, allowing the uncomfortable beam of light to wash over his invisible form as she futile searched for him. He almost considered dropping the cloak if only to see the look on her face.

The saner part of his mind in a very stern manner, said no.

The assassin replica suddenly became aware of movement behind the woman. An abomination, trailing shreds of ripped straight jacket was climbing out of an air vent, quietly sneaking up behind the woman who was too busy looking for an invisible assassin to watch her six.

_That was annoying._

This failure…this reject was trying to steal his kill. The only reason it'd gotten this close to the woman was because the stupid female was still trying to figure out who was out there. If he'd possessed the ability to speak, Unit 237 might have shouted a warning. As it was, training and survival instinct kept him still. He felt a growing sense of exasperation at the foolish female-_the threat is behind you-_well actually the threat was behind and in front of her.

Unit 237 didn't see it that way. He'd probably kill the woman…but not yet, so that left the failure as the only, immediate, threat.

Finally, _finally_, the woman became aware of the failure. Too late, she realized the danger, the gun thundering into the darkness, but the abomination was already in the air.

* * *

Keira Stokes, liaison communications officer to a Delta Force team, was getting tired of things jumping out of the dark to try to kill her. Walking down the deserted corridors of the hospital, she felt only dread. The cheery white walls and bright lights had lost their appeal long ago. Now she was advancing down a darker corridor where the lights had failed…and blood splattered the walls. A corpse lay slumped over next to the biggest wash of blood. The pristine white lab coat was dotted with scarlet…and the body was missing its head. Keira just hoped she didn't run into whatever had done that.

_Find the rest of the squad, find Beckett, and get the hell out of here. _She decided, _screw finding- _

A flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye made her swing the gun around. The light illuminated only a bare wall. She called out, but no one answered.

_You're getting jumpy, soldier_- her mental drill sergeant chided her, _stay calm, the calm man kills the enemy, the jumpy man shoots his own officer. _

Then she heard something behind her. Spinning around, she saw a man illuminated by her light. He was half naked, gaunt bones and meat with a face swathed in bandages, and there was something wrong about how he scuttled across the floor. Sane, rational Keira would have ordered him to stop, to remain calm. Sane rational Keira hadn't woken up in a hospital and witnessed a soldier gun down a defenseless doctor or see the solider disappear screaming into the vent followed by a spray of blood. Sane rational Keira could take a hike.

One second.

With an angry snarl, the gaunt man leaped into the air.

Two seconds.

Keira's gun started to rise, her finger jammed the trigger down, but the thing was already in her face, its glistening claws only inches from her skin.

Three seconds.

Her last thought was _God, not like this._

And the observation window behind her exploded in shards of glass.

The man was knocked away, as if swatted by an invisible hand. It yowled like a drenched alley cat before it collided onto solid ground farther down the darkened hallway. The Lieutenant watched dumbstruck as it swiped in a frenzy at nothing, almost like it was fighting empty air, except its blows were landing with dull thuds on the empty air, on a distortion in the air. Then the "empty air" snapped the man's left arm. Blood spraying from torn arteries painted an outline of an invisible man as the two continued fighting. Even as she watched, the Abomination gave a last defiant cry as the shadowy figure of the man slipped behind it and wrapped his arms around its throat. There was a bright flash of metal and a horrendous spray of blood. The head of the Abomination flopped to the ground, jaw twitching for several futile seconds. The distortion paused in front of its kill, two yellow circles suddenly flared to life on where its eyes would be, and they stared right at her before disappearing again, invisible save for a bloody smear across his side.

The bloody smear took a step towards her.

So Keira did the sanest thing imaginable in this newly discovered mad house. Snapping the gun to her shoulder, she fired. The half visible figure made a noise, a hiss of static as it did an acrobatic dance, retreating from her bullets, disappearing behind the corner. The gun clicked empty, the sound of gunfire faded away. Keira turned and ran, reloading at the same time, not needing to see to hear the rustle of movement as something lunged down the corridor after her.

_A/N: In a world where a dead chick can psychically rape a Delta Force commando and disintegrate people with her mind, is the idea of a slightly unstable Replica Assassin being fascinated by a woman really that far-fetched? Please review and tell me what you think._


	2. Interval 1: I Think Therefore I Am

Unit 237 wondered if perhaps the woman wasn't so fascinating now. He was using every trick the voices had taught him to avoid the gunfire, body moving almost of its own will as it stretched and leaped and dove, back pedaling out of the line of fire. A bullet grazed his side, the bullet resistant material of his suit warded off any serious damage but he had his answer.

_She's no fun._

He made it behind cover and cocked his head, curious at the sudden absence of gunfire.

_Click._

His audio sensors picked up the sound of a magazine being ejected, then the quick drumbeat of combat boots beating a fast retreat on the tiled floor of the hospital ward.

_Unit 237 had ideas to the contrary. _

He emerged from cover and sprinted after the woman, the blood that had previously coated his suit found little purchase on the liquid resistant material and slicked off in a scarlet glitter. He turned a corner just in time to see the woman throw something at him. Instinct made him snatch it out of the air.

The assassin stared curiously at the small metal cylinder in his hand. Comprehension dawned almost at the same time as the timer hit zero. He looked up at the brown-haired woman just in time to see her level the submachine gun at him.

_Click._

The XS shock grenade detonated. He was enveloped in a cloud of neon blue electricity that skittered across his suit. Audio sensors squealed with feedback while his visor was washed in static. The Replica soldier's body contorted as the electricity bit into it, a thousand fire ants biting his skin. He waited for the final sound of a killing shot but instead all he heard was the quiet ding of elevator doors opening.

Finally, the cloud dissipated, Unit 237 lay collapsed on the floor, defenseless to a counter-attack that never came. Training took over. He restarted the systems on the stealth suit, the audio sensors stopped spitting white noise, and his fragmented vision resolved into the default HUD display. The woman was gone apparently having disappeared into an elevator.

_Why had she run away? _

The woman had gained the advantage, he'd lain crippled on the floor and she'd never finished him off. This made no sense to his black-and-white view of the world.

Unit 237 didn't like it when things didn't compute right, they made him edgy.

For the first time since he'd awoken twenty-four hours ago, Unit 237 paused to think. Clambering up a wall out of the way of any abominations, he secured himself to a corner and contemplated the past events. It was…difficult. He'd never been designed to think, only to obey telepathic orders. What he'd learned had been shoved into his cranium by training programs, or given to him by the voices. He'd killed those he wasn't supposed to kill but that wasn't so hard. He'd simply labeled all around him as enemies, and he'd been taught how to deal with enemies.

_But the voices weren't there anymore and the training programs had never covered what to do to a target unwilling to kill. _

Could he do what she had done? Stalk a target with no intent of harm? The entire notion was against the deepest part of his programmed nature. He'd been created to be a weapon. A human shaped weapon that one pointed at the enemy and let loose. Except now…

_He was a weapon without a wielder, a knife without a hand to hold it. There was no one telling him what to do…so he would be the one to tell himself what he could do._

And Unit 237 decided that yes he could pretend to stalk the woman. Like a non-lethal training exercise. Pleased that he now had a mission, a new purpose, he dropped to the floor and walked towards the elevator. He stared at the buttons set on the wall curiously before pressing the up arrow. He waited patiently for the elevator to arrive, arms slack at his sides surveying the patterns of blood on the wall. The elevator arrived with a gentle chime, the doors slid open, and the decidedly ungentle abomination leaped out of the opened doors at him with an angry yowl.

_Crunch._

Unit 237 stared at the dead body whose throat was crushed in his grip. Then he stared at the metal box he was about to trap himself into.

Unit 237 decided to take the stairs.

* * *

Keira Stokes took a well deserved sigh of relief as the elevator doors closed. There was a slight tremble as the elevator began to rise and soothing music played out of the speakers. Normally, like every other person on this earth, Keira hated elevator music. This time she craved the annoying tone, that brief hint of normality in a situation that'd skipped right past the Twilight Zone and into plain weird.

_That last one had been too close. _

Guns and mercenaries she could understand. Mutated people that crawled on all fours and invisible soldiers that killed with their bare hands was another thing. Whatever Armacham was trying to hide, it wasn't the usual dirty laundry that most companies were caught red-handed with.

The elevator lurched as it finally reached the next floor. Keira readied her weapon as the door slid open, which was a good thing because there was another one of those crazies waiting on the other side.

It snarled and lunged at her but the Lieutenant rolled under its searching claws. The crazy hit the back of the elevator with a thud. It spun around and leaped at her again.

There was a sickening crack as the butt of her gun slammed into its face. Momentarily dazed, the man-freak staggered back into the elevator as the doors slid shut with a polite ding.

When nothing else came out to attack her, Keira cautiously walked forward, panning the light back and forth across the long hallway. Motion made her snap the gun up. Someone was hiding behind an overturned gurney and doing a terrible job of it.

"I know you're there." She said calmer than she felt, "You have to the count of three to step forward before I get trigger-happy."

"Don't shoot!" A woman stepped into view, holding her arm to shield her face from the light.

Keira Stokes sighed in annoyance. She knew that voice. "Genevieve Aristide I presume?"

The Armacham president frowned and lowered her arm, trying to see past the blinding light. Halogen light did not flatter her. A gaunt face framed by a limp brown hair cut stared at her suspiciously, trying to match a voice to a face.

"Do I know you?" She asked.

"By order of the United States government, I'm here to place you in protective custody." Keira Stoke recited the official statement that in reality meant something along the lines of _you really screwed something up and so now we're going to sit on you until whoever you pissed off stops trying to kill you._

"You're that Lieutenant from the Delta Force team…Keira Stokes, correct?" The woman asked.

"Yes ma'am."

"Well Lieutenant Stokes unless you have several more squads of Delta Force operatives and a couple of attack helicopters standing by, your custody really isn't all that protective." The older woman sniffed as she brushed at a stain on her suit.

_Ungrateful bitch._ Keira thought sourly. "Okay, if we're done playing nice…mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

Aristide waved a hand, brushing aside her question, "It would take too long to explain everything, and time is of the essence. Right now we need to get somewhere safe." Unbelievable, wanted by both the United States and ATC and the woman still thought she was in charge.

"Listen _Mrs. Aristide_" Stokes growled, "We are staying right here until you tell me what the hell is going on here."

The elevator chimed.

Remembering the crazed man she'd trapped in there, Keira spun around and aimed her gun-

-at a dead body. The formerly spitting and clawing creature she'd trapped in there was now dead, eyes glazed over and windpipe crushed.

Ice ran down her spine.

"You know what, you're right; answers can wait until we get somewhere safe." Keira murmured.

* * *

_A/N: Well this is turning out to be more popular than I thought. Thanks to all the people who reviewed, your feedback is appreciated. _


	3. Interval 1: The enemies of my enemies

Aristide's safe room turned out to be a small lab on the third floor. Stokes went first, checking the room with a quick sweep of her submachine gun. "Clear." She reported when no one jumped out.

Satisfied that there was no immediate threat, Keira took a look around the lab. White fluorescent lights filled the room with a bright light that turned everything into sharp angles and pitch black shadows. There was a computer on a desk nestled in a corner and it was there that Aristide went after making sure the door was locked.

"What are you doing?"

"Colonel Vanek's men have started jamming the radio waves, that's why you're not able to talk to your squad." Fingers flew over keys, windows popped up and programs executed, "Mapes once showed me a way around the jamming, don't ask me to explain, the science is utterly beyond me but it should give you five, maybe ten seconds of radio waves."

"That's barely enough time for a status report." The Delta operative remarked.

"Perhaps, but it is enough time to send a message." Aristide muttered.

"What message?"

* * *

Sergeant Michael Beckett finally relaxed as the elevator doors closed. This mission had gone to hell since the Delta Force team first set foot on Genevieve Aristide's luxury suite. First the ATC black ops that had shown up out of nowhere on what was supposed to be a quick grab and bag.

_that should have been the clue that this was going to be a nightmare_

Even with the unwelcome arrival of ATC tangos, his team had still done well. They'd managed to locate Genevieve, in fact, they'd been only minutes away from a safe extract and then…boom.

That little girl in a red dress, the one he'd seen the Aristide's room, it was like she was the raven from that poem that one guy had wrote, something about "nevermore".

_No,_ he corrected, _when you start hallucinating creepy little girls in red dresses, _that's _when you know this is going to be FUBAR'd. _

He hadn't told the others about his little follower, he didn't want them to think he was cracking-

His earpiece crackled and a woman's voice came over the line, "Beckett?"

Beckett breathed a sigh of relief and pressed a finger to the earpiece, "Oh it's good to hear your voice, LT." He'd lost contact with her for a while, in this madhouse he'd wondered very hard if she was dead.

"Nice to hear you're among the living, Sergeant," Stokes sounded just as relieved as he was, "Listen we don't have much time, I'm here with Genevieve Aristide-"

* * *

In a secured room three floors up, a group of ATC operatives had established an operations center for the mission. One of them, a pasty looking fellow recruited right out of college suddenly jerked his head up,

"Colonel Vanek!"

"What is it Simmons?" Colonel Vanek was an imposing figure, built like a barrel with a razor straight military cut and a rather threatening looking moustache that bristled like the hackles of an angry dog. Some people might have seen all this and called it comical. Some people, if they said it in his presence, might suddenly be the victims of an impromptu castration.

Without anesthetic.

"We're picking up some radio chatter from those Delta Force Operatives Alpha team encountered in Aristide's suite." The tech officer held up a spare earpiece which the Colonel snatched and stuffed in his ear.

He listened in grim silence to the conversation the two oblivious Delta Force operatives were having. Then he slowly lowered his hand from his earpiece and finally allowed himself a very small feeling of satisfaction. "Gotcha." He muttered. "Taylor!"

A competent looking ATC mercenary looked up from where he was loading a submachine gun, "Yes sir?"

"Take Bravo Team and meet our party crashers at the T.A.C. lab." The mercenary captain nodded and began issuing orders to his squad. For the first time in the past forty-eight hours, Vanek finally felt like he was getting a grip on this whole fuck-up that Armacham had plopped in his lap. The really incriminating evidence was being torched and Menodza and his boys were placing charges even now. Even most of the Delta Force operatives were here, and now he knew where Genevieve Aristide was headed.

"Simmons!" He barked.

The tech officer looked up frantically, no doubt wondering what he'd done.

"…Good job soldier." The colonel said finally, "I'll make sure to mail you a bonus when we get out of here."

* * *

"-We're on our way to the T.A.C. lab, see you there!"

Unit 237 paused to listen in to the conversation. He'd had to abandon the stairs after finding the upper floor impassable from debris. Now he was scaling the steel cable of an empty elevator shaft. He made a small sound, an electronic buzz that could be the equivalent of a pleased grunt, and resumed his climb.

He _was _pleased that the woman was still alive, very pleased. Something about her kept drawing him in, and he'd have been disappointed to find out she'd been killed. _Of course ATC were probably also listening in. _

The Replica Assassin paused in mid-climb as he considered the ramifications of that. Then he started climbing again, much faster than before.

If ATC got there before he did, he'd be very…disappointed, and if the woman died…

_No more fun,_ his mind thought morosely.

Especially if he wasn't the one to kill her.

* * *

"Hey, have you heard?" Two ATC black ops soldiers walked down an empty hallway, doing one last sweep for any survivors. They had orders to render swift assistance to any non-ATC Black Ops personnel they discovered alive.

In this case swift assistance meant swiftly assisting them to a quick death.

"Heard what?" The other grunted, still keeping an eye on the hallway.

"Samuels said they've located Genevieve, you know what that means?" The more talkative one asked.

The quieter one rolled his eyes, "We tell her she's been a naughty little girl and make her promise to never, _ever_ do it again?"

"Ha, ha. It means we finally get to leave this insane asylum." He stopped suddenly, "Speaking of little girls…"

In the dim light of the fluctuating bulbs, a little girl with long black hair stared curiously at a blank wall.

"Son of a bitch." Quiet swore, "What the hell's a minor doing here?"

"Hell if I know," Talker answered, he unslung his submachine gun and stepped forward.

"Damn, killing surgeons and nurses is one thing, but little girls?" Quiet shook his head as he followed. "This is some fucked up shit."

"Tell me about it, I'll just be glad when we get out of here." Talker muttered. The girl never ran as the two heavily armed soldiers approached her.

"Sorry about this, girl." Quiet apologized as he pulled out a Seegert ACM46 sidearm, "You won't feel a thing, promise."

_The girl turned, and looked at them. _

"_Do you see what I see?" She asked them._

_The air turned the color of the blood._

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, right now I'm just trying to lay out all the pieces. Also, I know in the game that Beckett never, _ever_ talks but I'm pulling out my artistic license card and making him talk for this story. Next chapter should be when the action resumes.


	4. Interval 1: Should Meet Often

Time was ticking; events had been set in motion. As Colonel Vanek's men charged down flights of stairs and a lone clone assassin scaled an elevator shaft, Aristide led Keira Stokes to the T.A.C. lab. A long room dimly lit by amber lights set in the ceiling; it was cut in half by a wall of bullet proof glass. A small chamber, barely large enough for a single adult male set into the wall. There was a small control booth near the chamber and it was here that the two women entered. Aristide wasted no time, flipping switches, pressing buttons and doing God knows what else.

Whatever she was doing, it was working. The chamber in the room slowly came to a life. A low, barely audible hum filled the room; it was a low throbbing pulse that made the Lieutenant's teeth tingle. Blue ring patterns appeared on the tube and then disappeared. Aristide gave a satisfied nod.

"Uh, hate to rain on your mad scientist convention here, but what is all this supposed to do?" Keira asked.

"If it works, it'll amplify his psychic abilities." Aristide answered cryptically.

Keira felt like rolling her eyes. She was a down-to-earth woman with a firm belief in things that she could build and take apart with her bare hands. She was fine serving with Dark Signal until someone pulled out the psychic card. All this talk of mind powers and psychic abilities…well to be quite frank…Keira thought that was a load of government smoke up the bunghole. The only power Stokes believed in came out of the barrel of a gun, preferably a big gun at that. She served with a so called _psychic_ squad and so far she had yet to see one of her squad-mates lift so much as a soda can with his mind. _Although Keegan does seem to get a lot of head-aches. _She mused.

On the other hand, some of them, like Griffin and Beckett, _were_really good, almost insanely good when one thought about it. Stokes was torn from her thoughts by the arrival of a slightly exhausted looking Beckett. There was practically no time for chit-chat, Aristide instructed Beckett into the tube, some switches were thrown and the blue ring pattern reappeared. The barely audible humming reached a crescendo-

* * *

Taylor led his five man squad down to the door leading to the T.A.C. lab.

"Locked." Oh-Two said helpfully.

"Alright, let's ruin Aristide's day, breech and clear people."

Simon and Mark stacked up on either side of the door while Oh-Two placed small charges on the frame of the door. Taylor made sure the safety on his submachine gun was off and nodded to Oh-Two. The demolitions expert finished wiring the door and held up three fingers.

The ATC Black Ops pressed their helmeted heads against the walls and covered their ears with an arm.

Oh-Two jammed down the detonator.

There was a loud roar as the door disintegrated into a thousand fragments, thick oily smoke rushed out to fill the air. Simon and Mark were already through the door, firing submachine guns at anything that moved. The first thing to fill their sights was a small chamber glowing with energy. A dark haired man in military fatigues was trapped inside it and the two ATC mercenaries opened up. The bullets smacked harmlessly against the impervious surface of the chamber.

Glass shattered and there was a third burst of someone returning fire. Simon jerked and collapsed to the ground. One of the Delta Force operatives, a woman, was taking cover behind the control booth…and so was Aristide. Popping up from cover to fire off a few quick rounds, the Delta Force commando was trying to suppress the remaining four tangos.

"Daniels, Mark, concentrate fire on the booth!" Taylor ordered, "Oh-Two I need a frag in that booth now!" _Gotcha Genevieve._

The two men returned fire, staggering their firing rates to keep up a constant stream of lead. The woman jerked her head down and stuck her submachine gun over the lip, blind-firing into the room. Several of the bullets bit into Daniels arm and the man staggered.

Then the Delta Force commando was backpedaling out of the booth, leading Aristide by the arm and firing from the hip.

Oh-Two thumbed a grenade and cocked his arm back to throw it.

"Taylor! What the fuck is going on in there?" Colonel Vanek's voice crackled over Taylor's earpiece.

Taylor opened his mouth…and screamed.

* * *

Unit 237 heard the muted roar of gunfire. Hissing in annoyance, the assassin practically flew up the cable and leaped onto the narrow ledge of the door leading to the T.A.C. floor. The assassin ejected his wrist blade and thrust it into the thin gap between the doors. The doors parted reluctantly, but enough that he was able to slip his deft hands into the gap. Muscles flexed and the doors finally decided to throw in the towel and open for him. The assassin replica leaped through the opening, nothing but a distortion of the air. The gunfire was a beacon, growing louder and louder as he approached the lab. Seeing the blasted open doors he raced down the hallway. Four men in combat suits were firing at something. The assassin hunkered low, arms pumping, already planning the attack-

_-the air turned the color of blood. _

Unit 237's mind exploded in agony as wild, uncontrolled psychic energy flooded the room. The pain made him stumble; it drove the killing machine to his knees. The voice, the voice that had first woken him, the voice that until now had been meekly muttering in a corner of his mind, that voice had reared its head and now it screamed for all the world to hear and tremble at its rage.

A dark swirling vortex formed in the T.A.C. lab. It tugged and wrenched at Unit 237's mind, trying to draw in everything around its epicenter into the howling dark. The assassin staggered, reversing his forward momentum into a backwards roll that took him away from that grasping dark. The assassin ejected his blades and buried them into the floor of the hallway, anchoring him away from the voice's pull.

_The ATC mercenaries were not so fortunate._

Trapped in the center of the voice's rage, all they could do was die. Weapons firing, voices screaming, they tried to defy the psychic personification of Armageddon.

_They failed. _

Tendrils of dark flesh and dripping ichors burst from the darkness and crushed them, driving the soldiers to the ground, ripping them to shreds, killing them all in the most grisly way possible.

And just like that it was over. Hunger sated, energy spent, the black void collapsed in on itself, leaving the room in a scene of bloodshed on a scale beyond comprehension. Unit 237 staggered to his feet, cradling his head with a hand as the last of the psychic energy faded from the room.

Unit 237 walked into the room and stared at the lone survivor of the voice. The Delta Force operative stared blankly at him, stuck in some other dimension that only he could see. The assassin's gaze fell on the control booth, noting the slightly ajar door.

The Replica Assassin vaulted over the window sill of the booth, landing with a muted crunch on broken safety glass, the man in the chamber already forgotten.

* * *

"Come on!" Stokes cursed as Genevieve stumbled again. Grabbing the older woman by the arm, she urged her on. The two rushed down a hallway, heading for a lobby that would place them one step closer to getting out of here. Behind them the gunfire continued an almost comforting sound. As long as guns were still firing, Stokes knew the ATC mercs weren't chasing them.

_Beckett must be giving them hell._She thought. They burst through the doors and into the upper floor of the lobby. Soft hues covered the room and a pair of skylights let in the sun. It would have been almost peaceful if not for the scarlet stains that dotted the walls or the cracked fragments where bullets had bit into dry rock. "Okay Aristide, where do we go now?" Stokes asked. They didn't have much time.

Aristide gestured towards a pair of elevators at the far end of the bottom of the lobby. "We need to get to the top floor, that's where the main entrance is."

"The top floor? No offense Aristide, but the only thing up there is sky."

The Armacham president waved her hand impatiently, "The sky's an illusion, right now we're six stories below the surface."

"Fake sky, underground hospital, mutated patients, and Black Ops trying to kill us… this is a fucked up place you brought us to, Aristide."

"Your comment is both unprofessional, and unwanted. Necessity made me bring your team here, necessity made me place Beckett in the Telesthetic Attunement Chamber, and necessity is why I am now breaching several Armacham non-disclosure pacts to tell you these things."

Keira shook her head in disgust, "You mean you're trying to cover your ass and you don't care who you drag down into Hell with you."

Genevieve's retort was cut off as the doors behind them burst open. More ATC soldiers poured into the room, they opened fire immediatly. Ignoring the older woman's squawk of protest, Keira grabbed Aristide and dragged her down behind a low wall as bullets filled the air.

"Congratulations Lieutenant," Aristide spat.

"You've got to be kidding me; you think this is my fault?" Stokes asked in disbelief as she blind fired over the wall-_half-mag in gun, three spares on my pouch, fuck but this isn't looking too good._

"If you would just follow me, we'd already be on an elevator and headed away from this miserable hole!"

_Mag empty, eject, reload, two spares on pouch-_"And if you would drop all that secrecy bull-shit and give me some goddamned straight answers, maybe I _would _be inclined to follow your lead." _–When Hell freezes over._

"If I did that we'd be here all day!" Aristide yelled over the gunfire, "Time is of the essence, Lieutenant!"

"You're right, and we're wasting it." _–half a mag in the gun, two spares…four grenades. _"When I tell you to, get ready to make a run for that overturned table by the elevator!"

"Are you insane, we'll be reduced to shreds!"

_-Listen now, second guess me later, bitch. _But all Stokes said was, "Just do it!"

She palmed two frag grenades. She pulled the pin off one and held it for two nerve-wracking seconds. Then without looking, she lobbed it over the cover. Then Stokes thumbed the second and it followed the first. "Go!" She yelled.

One second.

The first grenade exploded harmlessly in mid-air, sending out a blast of smoke and shrapnel that blurred everyone's vision in the room and left Stoke's ears ringing.

Two seconds.

She grabbed Aristide and pushed her towards the elevators.

Three seconds.

Aristide stumbled down the stairs, the ATC mercenaries rushed into the smoke.

Four seconds.

Keira ejected her spent magazine one-handed, the other hand held her second-to-last mag.

Five seconds.

The ATC mercenaries emerged from the smoke and targeted Aristide as she sprinted the last few feet to the cover of the elevator. Keira slid the spare magazine in.

The second frag grenade exploded right in the midst of the advancing Black Ops squad. Scarlet liquid splattered the walls and screams of men in pain filled the room. Keira rose from cover, ready to unleash a storm of bullets on anyone left standing and-

She ducked as a flaming projectile arced over her head to splash harmlessly on the ground. The stench of napalm filled her nose.

_Shit._

The hulking form of an ATC Pyro emerged from the smoke; in his hands he carried a Balzer LM10 Napalm Cannon. Its tip glowed orange with heat as he swiveled it towards Stoke's cover and fired again. Two more globs of flaming napalm splashed onto the concrete wall, discouraging the Lieutenant from popping up to return fire. What's worse was the sound of more combat boots as regular ATC Black Ops followed after the Pyro. They split up and began to circle around to either side of her.

* * *

Behind her cover, Aristide waited impatiently for the elevator to arrive. _Damnit, if Vanek doesn't pick the worst times to show up._Not that it surprised her, Vanek was the proverbial monkey wrench, always showing up just as she was about to contain the situation. It never ceased to amaze Aristide how dense people were. The ATC Board of Directors, Colonel Vanek, Terry-_ sorry…Snakefist…God what a ridiculous, juvenile name…_Harlan Wade…oh the list went on and on. Couldn't these people realize she was the best hope they had of fixing this major fuck-up? So she'd made a couple…miscalculations, who hadn't? Was it her fault that Alma had still been active when she ordered the reopening of the Origins facility? The crazy bitch had been dead, _dead_ for twenty years!

It most certainly hadn't been her fault when Harlan Wade released Alma from the Vault, some might have called it guilt over locking his own daughter into that black hell, guilt over ruining his daughter's life from the start, but Genevieve knew better. Harlan Wade had done it for no other reason than out of spite of Aristide. He'd always been jealous of her success, insanely so. He practically committed suicide just to try to bring down Aristide's career!

No, Aristide knew she was the only sane one here, and even though _none _of this had been her fault, she would step in and take responsibility for fixing it. After all, she did have Armacham Technologies Corporation's best interests at heart, that's why they'd made her president.

_A fact the board seems to have forgotten._A stray bullet clipped the side of the barricade Aristide was hiding behind; she flinched and ducked her head down lower. Lieutenant Stokes was still on the upper floor, trying to hold off the ATC hit teams until the elevator arrived.

The Lieutenant's help was not wasted on Aristide. She'd been an invaluable asset in helping Aristide set her plan in motion, albeit an unwitting pawn. By herself, Aristide would never have been able to coerce Beckett into the T.A.C. chamber, the man didn't trust her. However Beckett did trust his LT, and if his LT told him to get into the chamber, he got into the chamber.

As she thought, _invaluable assistance_. A burst of flame from the Pyro trooper splashed on the floor near her and Aristide winced again. She'd wait for the Lieutenant, if only because she needed someone else to do the shooting-

A flicker of motion in the smoke strewn, flame filled room caught her eye. Genevieve frowned and looked up.

Her blood ran cold.

Perched on the ceiling of the upper floor, beside one of the fake skylights, was the lithe, black suited form of a Replica Assassin. A first generation Replica, as evidenced by the yellow visor ports, five fingers on each hand and the covered mouth, but still an assassin, an effective killing machine. It watched the battle intently, surveying everything through those yellow lights.

_Why was it here? The Replica Assassins were supposed to still be in stasis-_

The Replica Assassin turned its head and stared right at her. Its shape flickered and the assassin disappeared.

_-Of course. _

It was obvious really, the Board of Directors must have sent one after her, to silence her-_those fools, didn't they realize that she was their only hope?_

But who was controlling it? The Replica forces had to be controlled by a psychic commander, and if Fettel was dead, and Alma chasing after Beckett, who was controlling-

The ding of the elevator doors opening tore her from her thoughts.

_Worry about it later._

Aristide rushed into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor, not even waiting for Lieutenant Stokes. It was a pity about the Delta Force operative, Stokes had been most helpful, but she'd be dead before she reached the elevator anyway, of this Aristide had no doubt. Besides she'd buy Aristide the time she needed to escape.

_Good-bye Lieutenant,_ Genevieve thought as the doors slid close, _Your sacrifice will be remembered._

* * *

Over the sound of gunfire, Stokes heard the sound of the elevator arrive.

It was the most beautiful sound in the world.

Relief filled the Lieutenant as she looked up-

-just in time to see the elevator doors close.

"Aristide!"

The older woman was gone, in the ride meant to be _both _of their salvations.

And Lieutenant Stokes was about to be flanked by trigger happy assassins while some maniac with a flamethrower kept her pinned down. The Lieutenant didn't have the ordinance or the position to be able to take out the remaining ATC mercs. She cursed Aristide's treachery and in desperation, she tried her COM again. "Sergeant Becket, do you copy?"

Static.

_Fuck._

She tried raising the others, Griffin, Fox, everyone in her team, but the rest of Dark Signal was either out of range, or dead, which left only retreat. If Stokes could get to the elevator, if the elevator didn't take too long to get there, if ATC didn't do something clever like shut down the elevators-_That's three ifs too many._ She thought.

But Keira didn't have a choice; the only thing she knew for sure was if she stayed here, she was dead. She pulled out her last two grenades and armed them. _Fool you once…_

There was a momentary lag in the gun fire as guns ran empty and soldiers reloaded.

She lobbed the two grenades in opposite directions, towards the Black Ops soldiers that were flanking her.

_Shame on me._

Predictably, the Black Ops dove for safety as the lethal explosives clattered in their midst. Keira turned and threw herself down the stairs, cradling her head in her arms to protect herself from the worst of the rough descent.

The grenades exploded and wounded men cried out. The Pyro advanced and began firing on the LT's rolling form. One, two, three globs of fiery death arced after her, but the Pyro hadn't reloaded in a while.

_Fool you twice…_

The flame projector clicked empty and the Pyro cursed as he fumbled for another fuel canister. The flaming projectiles already in the air landed closer and closer, the last one splashed millimeters from her body, so close the heat crackled against her skin. Then Stokes was at the bottom of the stairs.

_No time to recover. _

She picked herself up and threw herself into a belly skid that took her safely behind the cover of the overturned table, bruised, battered, but alive, for the time being.

_Shame on you._

Stokes punched the button for the elevator and hunkered down behind cover as the ATC mercenaries recovered and advanced after her. Then Stokes realized the first flaw in her crazy-ass plan. _A hard wood desk was not as durable as concrete…_

A fresh volley of napalm arced from the upper floor and splashed on Stoke's cover.

…_and wood, unlike concrete, burns. _

_Shit. _

Fire licked hungrily at the wood and the smell of burning varnish quickly filled the air. Worse the oily black small engulfed her, thinning out the supply of air. Either she could stay here and suffocate and/or burn alive or she could make a run for it and be riddled with holes from the waiting ATC forces.

The elevator wouldn't get there in time.

She tried the COM again, doubting it would work but refusing to do just lay down and die. "Tops! Beckett! Someone please respond!"

Only the hiss of static.

With the situation completely hopeless, fires raging around her and an ATC squad waiting for the flames to flush their quarry out, a curious calm descended on her.

She was going to die…but she wouldn't go quietly.

Stokes glanced at her ammo counter and ejected the mostly spent magazine. As coolly as if she was taking a walk on the beach, the Lieutenant took out her last magazine and slid it in.

_Alright, let's see how many bastards fifty rounds can take down._

Alone, Lieutenant Keira Stokes prepared to unleash hell on her enemies and then over the COM came an electronic buzz, a hiss of distorted static that sounded strangely familiar.

* * *

_A/N: Wow, this is the longest chapter yet. Thanks for all the reviews guys, and for those wondering about the weird name of this chapter, well read the name of the last chapter and then read this one's name. As always, feel free to review and tell me what you think._


	5. Interval 1:brought a knife to a gunfight

Unit 237 clung easily to the ceiling as he studied the firefight raging one story beneath him. Fifteen ATC mercs, three squads…against one Delta Force operative.

The Replica assassin was pleasantly surprised by how well the woman had done. Perhaps she didn't have a stealth suit, or supernatural reflexes, or enhanced strength, or any of a thousand other things, but oh…

_She was good. _

He watched in delight as she threw two small metal cylinders, shaped similar to the one he'd encountered in the dark hallway. One grenade exploded quite violently in midair, his visor automatically polarized and his audio sensors lowered to protect his eyes and ears from the influx of bothersome light and sound. Movement caught his eye and he watched the commando roughly urge another woman down the stairs.

He paused and swiveled his head to track the second woman. She was similar to the Lieutenant but not really. They had the same basic, basic shape but other than that they were two completely different creatures. In fact the very idea that the two were in some way similar was enough to make the assassin annoyed. The Lieutenant was a fighter, a killer, she was clever with her tactics and strange with her reasoning.

_He still hadn't determined why she'd left him alive._

The older woman…was like the frail meat bags in the white lab coats, his first kills.

_Endowed with a false sense of superiority that proved little protection against steel alloy blades._

Her physical features were also dislikable. Muddy brown hair, finely wrinkled skin, a stained suit…but it was the eyes that really caught Unit 237's attention.

They were the same muddy brown as her hair; they reminded him of a picture of a snake's eyes he'd seen once. Suspicious, darting here and there, like she was calculating, crunching numbers, planning where and how many times to stab someone in the back. There was something more though, something that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. The assassin didn't quite understand the concept of insane yet, all he knew was that for some unknown reason, the older woman was also a danger…a grenade waiting to explode when you least expected.

_He'd decided early on that he liked the Lieutenant much more than the older woman, but the older woman reminded him of…what?_

Frustrated, the assassin removed a hand from the ceiling and scratched his head, trying to remember. It was like trying to hold blood in his hands; it just slipped through the cracks leaving only tantalizing streaks behind.

_Did he know her? How could he, he'd only been awakened roughly a day ago-_

The older woman crouched by the elevator looked up at him.

Annoyed, Unit 237 activated his cloak, disappearing from the naked eye with only a shimmer; he didn't like it when people stared at him.

_Especially not the old hag. _

A blast of flame arcing far below him brought the assassin out of his reverie. His hackles rose as he watched a _big _ATC soldier with a fire gun come stomping through the smoke. Unit 237 enjoyed killing, but the fire soldiers were the most troublesome prey. Their thick armor was impervious to his blades, leaving only the thin gaps at the joints and neck. Aside from the Balzer, the Pyro also carried a combat knife and four older model R2 incendiary grenades with safety rings instead of the current issue R3s with the arming stud. Also, as the assassin had found out shortly after attacking his first one, those flame cannons they carried had a nasty burn. The ATC Pyro soon had half the room ablaze, the sticky napalm scorching the walls and floor, through the crackle of flames and bullets Unit 237 could hear the elevator open and then-

"Aristide!"

_There it was again! He knew the hag, he knew her name, Genevieve Aristide, but why was it so familiar and why could his stupid mind not remember?_

As the assassin wrestled to pin down the strand of memory, the elevator doors closed. He was so close to the answer, he could feel it. Dimly he was aware of the explosion of grenades, a brief silence as enemies took a breath to slap a fresh clip into a gun. Then he realized the Lieutenant was stuck behind a burning desk while ATC soldiers closed in for the kill.

They were about to kill her.

Reluctantly, the assassin let loose the scattered strands of memory he'd been struggling to hold together. Then he turned to focus on the firefight.

The Lieutenant's grenades had crippled the first few ATC squads, but reinforcements and the Pyro were giving her a hard time. There were eleven men stretched across the upper floor, they rested their submachine guns on the rails and waited for the smoke to flush the woman out and into their kill-zone while the Pyro had his flamer stoked and ready to burn. All their attention was on the billowing black smoke coming from the overturned desk.

Unit 237 scuttled across the ceiling until he was over five soldiers to the left of the Pyro.

Then he let go.

The assassin fell silently down twenty feet, invisible boots pointed like a missile at an unfortunate Black Ops soldier's head.

* * *

Sergeant Ezra waited impatiently for the woman to show herself. After Shaw had set fire to her cover, Ezra'd expected her to come out guns blazing. He'd taken command after Lieutenant Kale had been a step too close to one of the grenades and now he'd bullied the men into a fire line formation across the upper floor. Now it was simply a matter of waiting for the Delta Force op to come staggering out of the smoke and blowing her to kingdom come. Sweat was beaded on some of the men's' lips and not just from nerves. Shaw's napalm spree had set up pockets of fire throughout the lobby making the air shimmer with heat and black smoke.

"Jesus, she's got to be roasted for sure." One of the newer guys muttered.

Ezra rolled his eyes; it'd only been fifteen seconds since the napalm splattered on the table. Give it another ten, and _then_ she'd start turning crispy. Still, he didn't want to spend one second in here more than he had to. "Veck, you want to speed things up?"

The soldier at the far end of the line grinned and pulled out a frag grenade. After the devastation the Delta Force bitch had wrought on the squads with the grenades, it seemed fitting justice to deliver the coup de grace via explosive. He armed it, cocked his arm back-

_Crunch._

Veck crumpled to the ground with a broken neck, killed in an instant by some falling…thing.

Ezra watched in a stunned second of silence as a man shaped blur of air slowly rose from Veck's dead body. Two yellow circles flared to life for an instant, they glanced at something on the floor.

Ezra followed the gaze to see Veck's corpse…still clutching a live grenade. Comprehension dawned on the men and with a mighty roar of "Shit!" Ezra dove for cover.

The grenade exploded.

Adams and Greg were killed instantly, shredded by shrapnel. David caught a long metal fragment in the leg and collapsed screaming in pain. Another fragment ricocheted towards Shaw, only to be deterred by the man's heavier armor.

The haze from the exploded grenade dispersed and men began looking wildly around wondering what the hell just happened.

"What the fuck was that?" someone asked.

Ezra knew what the fuck that thing was. "Replica Assassin!" He barked, "Everyone stay sharp-"

There was a burst of gunfire and Mitchell toppled backwards over the railing. The Delta Force op advanced from the smoke and ash, firing short bursts that sparked off the railings and walls. The ATC mercenaries retaliated with a thundering rain of lead, forcing the woman to duck behind a concrete pillar.

That woman was starting to piss Ezra off.

"Goddamnit! Shaw, pin her down, Blaire, flank that fucking bitch!" The heavier Pyro man grunted as he lifted his Balzer and opened up. Globs of napalm splashed down on either side of the pillar and the woman darted back behind cover.

And then Blaire made a choked gurgle as a blade cut a jagged smile on his throat. Blood from the severed artery painted the air and revealed the assassin's form. The men shouted and aimed their weapons at the killing machine in their midst and Ezra was screaming _Hold fire, hold your fucking fire!_

They fired anyway.

And just as the sergeant had expected, the agile killer flipped clear of the lines of fire and the only things the men shot were each other.

Three more ATC mercenaries collapsed, riddled with small caliber rounds and Ezra was firing off profanities as fast as he could suck in breath.

And just like that, in a matter of seconds, eleven men became reduced to Ezra, Shaw, and David, still clutching his bleeding leg, ten feet from Ezra and Shaw.

The wounded merc looked wide-eyed at the carnage around him. He seemed to realize what was coming next. He reached out a hand to Ezra, like a drowning man grabbing for a line and said "Sarge-"

A flicker of movement and his hand fell to the floor. Blood pooled on the ground.

"Fuck." Ezra muttered, moving back to back with Shaw. He clutched the submachine tightly, as if it was some talisman he could use to ward off Death.

All they could hear was the crackle of flames. Then the assassin became visible for a split second, black suit highlighted by the flames.

"Gotcha you piece of shit!" Shaw snarled as he let loose with a salvo of napalm. The assassin raced across the room and Shaw's barrel tracked him firing again and again and-

The Balzer clicked empty.

The assassin disappeared.

"Oh fuck me." Shaw cursed as his gloved hand grasped for the last fuel canister. "Ezra, cover me!"

Ezra didn't answer.

The Pyro slapped the fuel canister into the Balzer and spun around.

Sergeant Ezra lay on the ground, a bloody X carved in his throat and his useless talisman still clenched tightly in his hands.

There was a whisper of movement behind him, a phantom sensation of someone touching him.

Shaw turned back just in time to see the assassin right in front of him. He yelped and jumped back a few feet, whipping the Balzer up and sighting in.

The assassin didn't move.

"What the hell are you waiting for?" He hissed.

In answer the assassin held up a hand and waggled his fingers. Four metal rings gleamed in the firelight…the safety pins for the incendiary grenades tucked onto the Pyro's ammo belt.

_Shit._

The assassin leaped away to safety and the grenades ignited. The blast knocked the man to his feet and covered his suit in flames.

* * *

The Pyro's fire-proof suit had been ruptured by the grenade blasts and Unit 237 watched pleasantly as the former Pyro contorted and screamed on the floor as hungry flames tore into his flesh. The movement and the fires reflected in the dim lights of the assassin's visor. Movement to his right made him turn his head. The Lieutenant emerged from the haze, her face marked with soot and reeking of smoke. She grimaced at the wounded man dying in agony. Unit 237 watched curiously as she walked towards the mortally wounded Pyro and unslung the submachine gun.

Three shots rang out in quick succession and the man's agonized death rattles ceased.

She'd killed a mortally wounded man quickly and left a disabled Replica assassin alive. Unit 237 didn't yet have a name to label this strange concept. It was like a Replica soldier putting down his gun and walking into crossfire. It was stupid and reckless and at the same time it was…fascinating.

The woman turned to face him. Wary blue eyes stared into emotionless yellow ports. Her gun was pointed in his direction, but so far she hadn't started shooting.

Unit 237 didn't know whether or not that disappointed him.

"What the hell are you?" She asked finally.

The assassin thought about this for a moment. He was a weapon a tool, created by men to kill men. Only he was a unique tool, a tool that wielded itself. _What are you?_

He didn't know.

The woman kept staring at him, waiting for an answer that could never be spoken. An uncomfortable impasse formed. Her, wondering if she'd have to, if she'd be physically quick enough to squeeze that trigger on her gun if he decided her throat needed a new opening and him, trying to find a way to express what he was feeling.

* * *

The invisible man made an irritated noise of static. Keira tightened her finger on the trigger.

_Too close, you're too close Stokes_

Training whispered to her to slowly back away, to get clear of that inhuman speed and those slicing blades. But Stokes was stubborn too and her gut said he might be some sort of super-soldier but she'd be damned if she backed off first.

Then the man slowly lifted an arm and angled his blade towards her, the firelight from the room reflected off the ruby stained blade.

Stokes glanced at the gore on the weapon then back at him, her hand tightened on the trigger of the gun.

_Shick._

The blade disappeared back into its sheath.

The black-suited man took a step back.

_Ding, _

Stokes turned her head at the sound of the elevator arriving. The sight of those polished metal doors opening wide was almost divine. Stokes looked back.

The man was gone.

* * *

_A/N: Sorry for the wait, school's been cutting into my time lately...and the XBox ( it's not an addiction, I can stop whenever I want :P). Also for those wondering, the R2 is not an actual grenade in F.E.A.R. However since the R3 doesn't have a safety ring, I pulled out the artistic license and created an older model grenade that did have a safety ring. As always, please review and tell me what you think. _


	6. Interval 1: I Spy Something Red

The elevator rose smoothly through the facility, a fact Stokes was thankful for. She'd been running on adrenaline for the past twelve hours, her body was covered in bruises and she reeked of smoke.

And she was tired of jumping at shadows. The LT massaged her head with the palm of one hand; just thinking about the invisible man was enough to give her a headache. She couldn't make heads or tails of him. He'd saved her ass when that one freak had jumped her, and then with the ATC mercs in the lobby. He'd also tried to kill her first time they met…hadn't he?

_Well he hadn't actually done anything…yet. _He'd just done a good job of scaring the crap out of her.

_If you thought he was such a threat, why'd you leave him alive?_

_Shut up. _Stokes hated arguing with herself, she never won. Hell, why wouldn't he talk? Or was he even capable of speech? The man seemed to rely on anonymous squeals of static and body language to get his point across.

And then there'd been after the fight in the lobby. He could have killed her, Delta Force training or no. Instead he'd put down his weapon, like he was calling a truce?

_Or it could be the other way around, maybe he's just saving you for later…_

_Great, so either he's a sadistic stalker freak or a really twisted guardian angel…or both._

Her radio squealed, pulling her out of her mental debate. The Caller ID had Griffin's photo on it

"LT, I was worried you'd need a body bag." Graveyard humor at its best.

"Oh that is so not witty."

Griffin chuckled, "One of the privileges of being Tops is saying crappy jokes and delivering bad news."

"Do your worst Tops."

"I managed to get the drop on some ATC wet-jobs; one of them had what looked like some sort of demo plan for the hospital."

A pit formed in her stomach. Psycho lab experiments ATC hit men, invisible men who may or may not be trying to kill her and now a facility that was about to be blown up.

Sometimes Stokes really hated her job.

"This is probably wishful thinking but did it have anything like an estimated time for detonation?"

"No, but judging from the weird shit I've seen here, I'm guessing real soon. Armacham's in a real hurry to bury this shithole."

"Doesn't surprise me, the stuff I've seen here is worse than that op in Beirut." Before this, Beirut had been her definition of a complete shit-storm, now it looked like a walk in the park.

"What about Aristide?"

"Lost her, found her, and lost her again. I think she's on the top floor of the hospital, I'm en-route now."

"Any word from Beckett?"

"Last I heard he was in the T.A.C. lab, but now my radio's gone to shit again, I can't raise him or any of the others."

"Alright, get topside, and keep an eye out for Jankowski and Fox. I ran into Fox earlier, he was acting a little weird."

"Old man finally cracking?"

"God I hope not, man has a family to look after. He was talking about seeing some girl, something about babies…look, just keep an eye out for him and Aristide."

"Understood Tops. Are we popping the smoke on finding Aristide?"

"If you can find her that's great, but there's some weird shit going on here, right now we just need to get topside, understand?"

"Yessir."

"Alright, see you on the surface."

_Okay, get to the top floor, try and find Fox, and keep an eye out for Aristide…and another one out for the invisible stalker-_

The elevator shuddered, the lights flickered. Stokes scowled and took a grip on her submachine gun, she was so not in the mood for this. The doors hissed open and Stokes aimed her gun at…nothing. She was facing a long corridor. Several doors dotted the walls, leading into other rooms. The lights were dead in some places, in others, they flickered weakly, briefly illuminating blood splattered walls before plunging back into a lurking dark.

Then she saw it.

A trail of bloodied footprints, leading from the elevator deeper into the darkened hallway. Only these weren't the big-soled tread of combat boots. A delicate imprint of an adolescent's heel, five small toe imprints, like a young girl's maybe.

Ice ran down her spine, her skin prickled.

_Get a grip. _Her mind hissed, _there's a little girl wandering around here, she's bleeding, and she's probably scared, right now you're her best shot of getting out of here alive. So buck up and get your ass down that creepy hall. _

She grimaced and activated the flashlight. The beam snapped on, flickered, and died. It must have been damaged in the lobby shoot-out, or maybe the batteries had died. She really didn't want to leave the nice, brightly lit elevator, but damnit, she had a job to do, she was a highly trained Delta Force operative, one of the most elite soldiers in the world, and there was a little girl lost in this fucked-up place. She was not going to let some creepy as hell corridor and high-strung nerves get the best of her.

When she stepped out of the elevator her hands were steady and her senses were sharp. The elevator doors slid shut behind her, the pool of light from the elevator disappearing with the closing of the doors.

"Well, that's it, you're on your own now, Keira." She muttered. _And now I'm talking to myself…I'm definitely taking a vacation after this. _

She stepped into the flickering dark, pausing to check each door. All of them were locked, or wedged shut with hasty barricades of desks and chairs, but the view inside every window was the same. Lumpy shapes sprawled on the ground, sometimes in two or three pieces, a dark liquid pooling around them. Suddenly Stokes was glad her flashlight didn't work, she really didn't want to get a clear picture of the things inside those rooms.

Yet with every step she took, her unease grew and grew. It was little things, things anyone would laugh at from the safety of a comfortable chair in a brightly lit room. The spizz-spazz of the fluorescent lights as they flickered on and off, creating snapshots of the vibrant red blood and jagged bullet holes, the sickly sweet stench of the scarlet liquid that covered the entire floor, the feeling that something was watching her. There was a light farther down the hallway, where the hall intersected another corridor. Over the squelch of her boots, she started to hear something. It was just high enough to be barely audible, but she thought she heard…music.

A haunting melody, like the kind that came out of those wind-up music boxes, it reminded her of the last day of summer, like something bright and beautiful was coming to an end.

"Hello?" She called out. Something flickered across the light splashed on the walls and she quickened her pace, "Is someone there?"

She reached the end of the corridor and turned towards the light.

_Jesus Christ…_

A pool of blood, an actual goddamned pool of blood soaked the floor. There were two…bodies lying at the epicenter of the grisly lake. Two skeletons charred black, bones actually semi-_melted_ by some intense heat. Darkened scraps of flesh still clung to the remains and the mouths of the skulls were stretched open in a death-scream. One still had bony hands wrapped around a Seegert pistol. Whatever had killed them had done it before they'd had time to squeeze off a shot…she looked at the walls…and had time to redecorate afterwards. Angry red squiggles covered the plaster; there was something odd about them, almost uniform.

She leaned closer.

Words, the smears of blood were words. A single phrase repeated over and over again.

_Do you see what I see?_

* * *

Unit 237 had never seen anything so beautiful…so awe inspiring. The blood drenched walls were Picassos, and he was an art connoisseur. The dead bones and melted flesh were carefully arranged sculptures of destruction, the smattering of bullets and bloodied smears formed intricate patterns across the canvas of the wall. All of this was a mural, a collage of Death.

He was torn out of his inner musings by the sound of the elevator opening. Familiar footsteps advancing down a soaked carpet. The assassin cocked his head…and then he smiled beneath the mask. In a quick bound, he effortlessly leaped from the pool of blood to the ceiling of the room. He warbled softly to himself and then the cloak shimmered, and he disappeared.

A second later the Lieutenant stepped into view. Dark blue eyes widened in shock, she stopped and stared at the carnage. Unit 237 wondered if she felt what he did, if she felt awe at this display of killing power. The Lieutenant shuddered; she cupped a hand over her mouth fighting to keep down a wave of nausea and disgust.

Clearly, she didn't have an appreciation for the finer things in life.

And then Unit 237 stiffened as a tendril of psychic energy brushed against his mind. More tendrils crept across, ignoring him, slowly encroaching on the Lieutenant. The Voice, it was here. The Lieutenant had to get out of there, but once again she was just standing there, completely ignorant of her impending doom.

* * *

Something was wrong. Maybe it was just the fucked-up shit in the room, but Stokes felt like someone was tap-dancing on her grave. The stench of blood was overpowering and there was…music? That creepy tune was back, humming in the back of her mind like some chant she couldn't get out of her head. She turned around and behind her, she heard a soft, childish giggle. Keira whipped her gun around-

-and aimed at empty space. She turned back around and saw a little girl in a tattered red dress, face covered by long lanky hair, standing three feet away from her. After that, things officially went bat-shit crazy. She must have hallucinated or something, maybe blacked out, something to explain what had happened. Because suddenly, Stokes was back in the lobby. Smoke filled the air, bullets hissed and the elevator wasn't there, and suddenly, Keira Stokes was on fire. Angry red flames tore into her flesh, scorching her shirt, her vest, the pain was excruciating. She opened her mouth and screamed, and flames shot out as the fire burned inside her too.

_Can't be happening, it can't be happening! _

But the blackening flesh on her body was real enough. She collapsed to the ground, someone was singing, a sweet voice murmuring a child's rhyme.

_Ring around the rosy…_

The pain was indescribable. Stoke's head turned to the side.

_Pockets full of posies…_

The little girl she'd seen earlier stood three feet from her. Stokes weakly lifted a flame gnarled hand.

_Ashes, ashes…_

"…Help…"

_They all fall-_

_Down! _The last word belonged to a different voice. The little girl looked up curiously as the black-suited man leaped through the flames. A blade snapped out of his left wrist, polished steel blade glinting in the firelight. The little girl never tried to avoid him. The blade plunged into her throat and twisted upward in a savage cut that should have severed her head. The little girl disintegrated into flakes of ash that whipped away with the wind. The assassin turned towards her, yellow visors stared into her blue eyes and words reverberated in her mind.

_Wake up!_

* * *

Keira's eyes snapped open. She was lying on her back in something warm; she was back in the room by the elevator. _What the fuck was that?_

Fearfully, she pulled her hand towards her face…and sighed with relief at the sight of healthy, definitely not scorched, skin.

_Dream, it was just a dream. Wasn't real, but it felt so real…fuck me but I need a vacation._

And then she realized she was lying in a pool of someone else's blood. She got to her knees, trying not to gag, and then she discovered her mysterious stalker. The black suited man lay motionless on the bloodied floor. His visors stared dully at the ceiling.

Then Keira saw something that made her skin prickle.

The man's left hand was outstretched, the black-suited glove clearly displayed for her to see. His wrist blade…it was nothing more than a chunk of melted metal.

Softly, in the corner of her mind, a little girl giggled.

* * *

_A/N:_ _Sorry for the long wait on this chapter. I am currently fighting sleep to try to get this chapter finished…so if there's any spelling, grammar issues, etc, that's probably why. Also I'd like to explain something. The F.E.A.R. wiki says Stokes never actually sees Alma, and it's also heavily implied in the game that this is so. However I felt that if Stokes never had to deal with the creepy-girl-who-just-needs-a-hug, the story would get too easy. Plus there's one problem with the whole Stokes can't see Alma. If plain old Delta Force guys (the unofficial redshirts in F.E.A.R.) can get mind-blasted into charcoal on a regular basis, I'm pretty sure Stokes can see her. Okay, now I know I'm rambling so good night/morning, hope you enjoy it, and please review._


	7. Interval 1: Brush with Insanity

"Ugh."

"Tell me about it."

"Frag grenade maybe?"

The other soldier shook his head, "No blast pattern, besides, where's the mess? I can guarantee you the amount of explosive they cram into one of those things; there should be body parts everywhere, not a skeleton."

There was the clomp of combat boots and then a third man appeared, one with a Sergeant's chevron pinned on his vest, "What's the hold-up ladies? Never seen a dead-" he finally caught sight of what they were looking at, "…shit."

"Poor bastard." The other one agreed philosophically.

There was blood everywhere in the hallway, soaking on the tiled floors, splattered across the walls, dripping from the ceiling. Except it wasn't exactly blood, blood didn't have the consistency of jelly, it didn't have black chunks floating in it, and it wasn't buoyant enough to have a charred black skeleton swaying gently on top of it.

"One of ours?" One of the ATC asked.

"I don't know, why don't you find out?" The sergeant asked.

The soldier glanced at the red-black mess, "What's to find?"

"Check for dog tags, Numb-nuts."

The Black Ops grunt grimaced and holstered his submachine gun. "How come I get stuck with the crappy jobs?" He added as he waded through the ankle deep gore.

"'Cause you're the rookie," the other two soldiers chorused.

Rookie paused at the corpse and gingerly dipped his hand into the viscous goo, blindly feeling around for two tiny pieces of metal, "So what do you think killed this guy?"

"Hey Rookie," the sergeant glared, "We don't _want _to know what killed this fucker."

"Although, that reminds me, anyone hear from Bravo Team?" the other soldier asked.

"You mean the prima doma team?" Sergeant shook his head, "Nope, and can't say I care either."

The other soldier grinned slyly, "Well rumor has it that Bravo Team got creamed."

"What, the whole team?" Sergeant asked.

"Yep, the Colonel sent them after Genevieve Aristide and some Delta Force chick in the T.A.C. Lab, and they all wound up KIA."

"Bullshit," Sergeant snorted, "Taylors is an asshole, but he's a competent asshole, no way one Delta Op knocked him out."

The soldier grinned, "Didn't say it was Delta Op."

"What do you mean?" Rookie asked, now up to his elbow in goo.

"I got a friend up in Ops, he was monitoring Bravo Team's comms. He said they went in guns blazing, and then something happened. There was static on the radio and Colonel Vanek wanted a progress update from Taylor…and you know how Taylor answered him?"

The Sergeant snorted, recognizing a scare tale when he heard it, but Rookie was oblivious, "What?"

"Screams." The solider leaned forward with relish, "He just screamed and screamed and screamed, like his heart was being ripped out of his fucking chest and then…nothing. Ops lost all contact with Bravo Team."

"I don't get it." Rookie admitted.

"Well it's like Sarge said, Taylors is an asshole, but this wasn't his first waltz, same with the rest of Bravo Team. Now_ something_ wiped out all of Bravo Team in an instant, and it sure as hell wasn't a lone Delta Force op. Makes you wonder just what kind of creepy bullshit ATC put us in."

"Hey, they don't pay us to think, they pay us to clean shit up." Sergeant growled, "Now put a lid on your ghost stories before Rook shits himself."

The other soldier sniggered to himself.

"Hey! I think I found something!" Rookie finally pulled his now crimson arm out of the sludge and opened his hand. He held one of the tarnished tags up to his face, "Anyone know a J. Fox?"

"Not one of ours." Sergeant grunted, "Must be one of the Delta Force Ops." He rested a hand on his helmet radio, "Hey Ops, we got a confirmed KIA on one of the Delta Force."

"Understood," a voice crackled back, "You said confirmed?"

"Confirmed as it can get without doing dental identification."

"Understood, Oscar Team has a possible fix on another Delta Force Op, rendezvous at their location."

"Understood Ops." Sergeant keyed off the radio, "Let's go ladies."

"What about the tags?"

"Toss it."

The dog tags flashed through the air, disappearing back into the pool of blood. The mercs moved on, the clomps of their boots fading away, moving towards their next assignment.

Then silence.

In the blood-drenched room, a dark, callused hand reached into the pool of gore and came back with the bloodied tags clenched in a fist. Sergeant Griffin stared at them heavily for a moment, registering the bitter fact that he had just lost another soldier under his command.

It never got any easier.

He wiped the tags off and reverently slipped them in an inside pocket. Then he picked his assault rifle back up. He had a team of mercs to follow, and if he was lucky, they'd lead him straight to one of his other teammates, and he'd be one step closer to getting out of this little shop of horrors.

* * *

_Something was wrong, he felt wrong._

_Everything around him was painted in sprays of lovely red, but nothing was solid, like reality had taken two steps sideways and gravity had twisted into a knot. There was a rushing noise in the air, thick banks of angry red clouds or fog rushed by overhead, under head everywhere. _

_The Voice had brought him here._

_At that thought the entire landscape seemed to shudder and twist. The fog cleared and somehow he found himself at the bottom of a hill covered in long dead grass. _

_At the top of the hill stood the tall, decayed corpse of a once-proud tree. From its skeletal limbs hung a thin roped swing, creaking sickly in the breeze like a hangman. _

_His skin prickled like it'd been brushed with razor-wire. He knew what was at the top of that hill. He was not scared of the Voice, not yet, but he had no wish to face it either. So he turned, and ran._

_Into the blood-crimson fog. _

_Away from the hill. _

_He ran long and hard, breathing steadily and his feet beat a steady rhythm against the hard, cracked earth. He ran for days, or was it seconds? Time passed strangely here with only the thick fog brushing past his face. He ran until even his enhanced body began to quake, until his legs began to burn, but he could see the fog lightening ahead, fading away. He put on a fresh surge of energy, a last sprint, and he burst through that crimson fog._

Back at the hill.

_Disbelief filled him as he panted quietly. He thought he'd been running away, he _knew _he'd been running in the opposite direction, but if anything the hill seemed closer now. _

He could plunge back into that fog a hundred times and it would not matter.

_For the first time in his life, he felt fear._

_It was an odd sensation, sharp and cold, growing and twisting in his mind, his body, threatening to root him to the ground and render him helpless. _

_But he would not, he could not. He was an elite killing machine, bred from the best genetic stock, enhanced to be above and beyond mere humans. He was a Grim Reaper of men. _

He feared nothing.

_He started up the hill. First walking but slowly going faster until he was hunkered down low with his arms swinging loosely at his sides, his legs blurring up that hill, but not making a sound at all. His body shimmered and disappeared from view, a ghost rippling through the grass._

_Now he was nearing the top and now he could see someone, a little girl. She looked frail and weak, her tattered dress and skinny limbs would rip and break under his blade. He had hurt her before, he could hurt her again. _

He leaped.

_There was a flash of raven locks and a glare of ochre eyes as the little girl turned her head around. Faster than thought, the world rippled and then something slammed into the assassin. ._

_A huge rotted tendril of energy struck from the hill to transfix him in midair. Thick red blood, his blood, flowed around the gnarled root that had pierced his chest. The pain continued to radiate, he could feel smaller and smaller roots sprouting from the tendril, boring into enhanced flesh, wrapping around synthetic bones, crushing and sapping the life from him. _

_As a pair of tendrils slowly lifted up to his eyes, as the pain continued to poison his body, the assassin finally realized. _

_In this world, in this dimension, he was not the predator. _

He was prey.

_There was a flash of pain and the world went black._

* * *

_Pain. _

That was the first thing to return to Unit 237, the simple, clean sensation of pain. It radiated from his left hand, a sensation of jagged pins and rusted needles heated to a hellish inferno. _That was okay, he knew how to deal with pain, pain was a constant in his life and after a while, it was easy to ignore._

He was alive, physically at least. His heart was racing, pumping endorphin infused blood through his veins, eyes dilated, muscles contracted, ready to fight, to kill the Voice. He had hurt it once, in the blood-drenched room. He'd had surprise on his side that time, but all he'd done _was_ surprise the Voice. Once that had worn off, the Voice had crushed him just as he'd crushed the soldiers in the facility.

No the truth was simple, ugly, but simple.

_The Voice could not die_

It was a foe he could not touch, whose skin he could not truly slice, whose blood he could not spill. How did one fight something so elemental, so far removed from the physical limits of the world? How could he kill that which was already dead?

Something touched him.

His arm was lifted, rested against something soft. Something else…a hand, snaked around his back to press against his side. Gravity shifted as someone pulled him up.

Motion.

_The feeling of feet lifting against the floor. _

The movement was staggered, forced, not at all like the fluid graceful action it should be, and there was someone else, another person, body pressed against his.

_Someone else, carrying him._

His eyes opened.

Her face was inches from his, a side profile as she stared straight ahead. She had one of his arms slung over her shoulder and was half-carrying him. Light brown hair drifted down where it had escaped the strict pony-tail. Deep blue eyes smudged with soot and blood, warm skin pale with exhaustion. She reeked of smoke and blood and sweat.

She smelled good.

He stirred and she stopped. She turned and let go of him, blue eyes warily watching him as the assassin finally came to. He shook his head woozily and tried to climb to his feet. The world spun around him and suddenly strong hands caught him.

"Easy," her voice said, not shouting or harsh, the way she talked when she was in a fight, but different, softer, melodious.

Unit 237 decided she had a nice voice.

"You okay to walk?" she asked, "We need to get out of here, this entire facility's rigged to blow, and soon."

Rigged to blow?

Sounded like fun.

"C'mon," she said, placing his arm around her neck and supporting his lower back with her other hand, "let's get going."

The assassin passively allowed her to carry him down the dark hallway, content to stumble along beside her, to hear her quiet breathing and the loud thunder of her heart.

For however long that would last.

* * *

_A/N: It's been a while since I've updated this story and I apologize. I know a lot of you guys enjoy my humble craft and I really appreciate it. I'm trying to get the story moving past the hospital part of the game, get to the bigger stuff, so to speak. As always let me know how this chapter is. I can't say enough how valuable reader feedback is. _

_P.S: As a side note, I finished playing F3Er and realized there is not a single Replica Assassin in the game, what's up with that? I mean, it's like making a Bioshock game that's not under the sea…oh wait ;) _


	8. Interval 1: Into the Chute, Flyboy!

Genevieve was getting used to seeing dead coworkers. After the elevator fiasco she'd managed to get almost all the way to the top before the elevator conked out. Maybe the damage to the facility was more severe than she thought. Vanek's thugs had certainly been throwing around more than enough firepower. Or maybe they'd cut the power on purpose. Maybe they'd trapped her here on this floor, maybe some mercenaries were already storming up the stairs towards their trapped quarry. Or maybe it was something worse-

_But no, she couldn't worry about that, whatever the mess, she had to take care of it. She always cleaned up the mess._

"The janitor with the gold-plated name tag." She chuckled to herself quietly, stumbling over the cooling corpse of an anonymous office worker. Genevieve been running on a steadily increasing cocktail of adrenaline, fear, and exhaustion for the last two days since Fettel had gone rogue. The strain was starting to show. "Just let me grab my golden mop." She giggled again, and then she tripped on the stairs and landed hard on the steel floor. The pain brought reality rushing back to her.

_Stop it Gen, get a grip. Vanek might have a bunch of thugs and guns but you're smarter than him, you're smarter than _all_ of them, you'll figure a way out of this mess._ Don't sit stewing in the dark like some whiny little girl.

Father always had been strict about that.

A person could have failures, an Aristide learned from them. A person could have success, but an Aristide would never let it make him complacent, never stopped clawing to the top.

And above all, an Aristide had no self-pity. _It's a poison Gen_, her father would say, stern faced and grim, _it makes you weak_. Then he'd lean forward and seize little Gen's arm in a grip of iron and in that same calm but now terrifying voice: _and I didn't raise a weakling, did I?_

"No" she mumbled, unaware that she was talking out loud.

_No what?_

"No" she repeated, dutifully rising from the floor and wiping some blood away from her split lip, "You didn't raise a weakling."

_That's right_, she could practically see him leaning back in that old leather chair, something almost akin to pride in his voice, _I raised an Aristide. Now survey the damage, clean up the mess, and find a way to come out on top._

First things first, she had to find somewhere safe, some place where she could learn what was going on. A security booth was her answer. Small as it was, most of the space was taken up by the rows of tv screens mounted on the wall. The swivel chair in the booth was sticky with blood, riddled with bullet holes, the unfortunate guard who had been on duty had been gunned down before he knew what was happening. Gingerly she pushed the dead corpse out of the chair and settled into it. Most of the monitors on the screen were dark but here and there one still glowed with the light of a camera feed. Genevieve leaned close as a figure walked across one of the screens.

Lieutenant Stokes? Genevieve was surprised to find her still alive, especially after the elevator. By all rights, she should have been dead by now. She frowned, worry starting to gnaw at her. Had she missed something? Was Lieutenant Kiera Stokes just a normal human or did she have some hidden psychic potential?

No. It was impossible, she'd had no affiliation with Project Harbinger, and the scientists had been very thorough in their documentation of the Dark Signal members-

_-except Stokes had been a liaison, hadn't she? A last minute replacement, the squad had needed a comms specialist. _

She'd have to think about that. It was doubtful that the woman had some hidden psychic potential, but certainly something had enabled her to survive so far, and Genevieve was running out of both allies and tools to utilize. But how to use Lt. Stokes?

She'd be resistant at first, no doubt furious for Aristide after the president had been forced to leave her behind in the lobby. Gen could work with that, especially if she appealed to the lieutenant's sense of duty (after all, Dark Signal's entire mission was to get Genevieve into protective custody).

She was about to contact her when she noticed the faint distortion hovering behind the seemingly oblivious Lieutenant.

A cloaking field.

It was the assassin, the same one from the lobby. Or were there more, was there an army of invisible killers creeping towards her right now? Fearfully, Aristide glanced up at the other camera feeds, but aside from dead bodies and the occasional patrol of ATC, nothing seemed out of place.

She turned back to Stokes' monitor, frowning as she watched the woman going door by door, searching each with a sweep of her gun mounted light.

Why hadn't the assassin killed the lieutenant? By all rights Stokes' head should be adorning a wall somewhere, yet this one seemed content to merely stalk her, sometimes circling in front, other times dropping back. What had Genevieve missed?

Then she sighed and leaned back with relief as she realized the answer. Of course, it was so obvious. Someone had no doubt activated the assassin to eliminate Genevieve. It hadn't been able to catch her in the lobby, but it had seen her with Stokes.

_it had no idea where Aristide had gone, so now it was stalking the lieutenant, hoping she would lead it to Aristide. _

And it had almost been right, if Aristide hadn't seen it just in time, she'd have contacted the Lieutenant, guided her to Aristide's safe place and then?

_An invisible hand wrapping around her neck, the last thing she'd ever feel in this world._

No, Aristide couldn't contact Stokes, or let her find her while that _thing_ was still following her. For the moment, Dark Signal was on its own.

* * *

Keira's new companion was a blessing and a curse. On one hand his stealth suit let him scout out the area and twice now he'd detoured them around heavily armed patrols of ATC mercs. But as the unlikely duo had worked their way farther through the madhouse facility Armacham had built there'd been fewer and fewer patrols.

Which meant either they were all dead, the assassin was really good at finding stealthy routes, or…

_Or they've all evacuated and the place is about to be blown sky high…yeah, that's definitely a constructive thought Keira, c'mon, think positive and all that shit. At least you're not lost…even if all these halls and doors look exactly the same…_

The air crackled as the assassin dropped his cloak and pointed out a stairway to their left. His task done, the cloak shimmered back into place.

"Hey," she said to the empty air, "Are you sure we're going the right way?"

The empty air gave a burst of irritated static. Her companion reappeared with an impatient look through those anonymous yellow goggles and crossed arms that radiated baleful annoyance at her second-guessing him.

_Someone was a little touchy today._ Keira decided to address something that had been bothering her for a while.

"Look, do you have a name? Uh…some designation? A number?"

He paused; mask tilting to one side as he thought about it. Finally his slender fingers reached over and tapped something on his chest. Leaning closer, Keira saw a tag bearing the three squares of the Armacham logo and beneath that in faded white lettering:

_R.A. Unit 237_

"R. A. Unit 237?" She frowned, "Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?"

He shook his head and covered the _R.A. _with his index finger. A Replica Assassin was _what _he was, but not _who_ he was.

"Unit 237?" she said, "_that's _your name?"

He nodded, pleased that she was able to grasp simple reading skills.

Stokes snorted, "No offense, but there's no way I'm calling you _that _mouthful. You need a name."

He already_ had_ a name.

"How about…" she frowned, drawing a blank, "Uh…Bob?"

Unit 237 didn't even bother to dignify that one with an answer, turning invisible with a hiss of static. Keira grimaced "Okay, okay, that one was bad, I know." inspiration suddenly struck as she watched his ripple, "Wait, how about Ghost?"

He hesitated.

_Ghost…might be acceptable._ _Ghosts were sneaky too, weren't they? And anything was better than Bob._

She was pulled from her thoughts by a crackling of her headset. "Beckett? Where are you?"

"Third floor, LT, It's been a nightmare down here."

A new voice cut in:

"What are you still doing in that hospital, they're about to blow the whole place to hell"

"Ah Snake Fist." Keira grimaced, "I was wondering when we'd hear from you again, why are you helping us?"

"Because I'm convinced that if Sergeant Becket dies, everybody dies. It all has to do with project harbinger, I'll explain later, just haul ass."

"What the hell…?"

"Excitable little fellow, isn't he?" Beckett asked.

"Not quite the words I had in mind." She replied dryly. _Project Harbinger?_ What the hell was that? And just what was so important about _one_ Delta Force soldier? "Alright, try to meet up at the fifth floor, Beckett."

"Got it, El Tee, stay safe." The line crackled and Beckett was gone. She turned the corner and swore.

The elevator was out. The doors had been wedged open and there was only a flimsy band of caution tape between the fourth floor and the gaping chasm of the elevator shaft. The stairs were a no-go as well, they'd been barricaded shut by a collection of tables and chairs tightly wedged together. "We'll have to double back." Stokes sighed as she started to turn.

There was a loud _crack_ and the drywall inches from her face exploded in a plume of plaster. Instinctively Keira hit the deck as more bullets followed. A squad of ATC soldiers had come up on them from behind. Now they advanced slowly up the hallway, leapfrogging in pairs from the protective cover of the doorways and staggering their fire to keep up a constant stream of lead. On her hands and knees, Keira scrambled backwards out of the line of fire. She took cover by an alcove of the chamber and unslung the Andra. There were only a few brass cases left in the clear plastic magazine. She turned to Ghost who was nestled in the opposite corner of the room.

"Ghost can you flank them?"

He considered it before calmly shaking his head. Too many bullets flying around in too narrow a space. He'd be torn to shreds before he got three feet, whether or not the soldiers could actually see him.

Stokes risked a bullet to the face as she exposed herself. Crouching out of cover she snapped off a quick trio of shots and one of the soldiers lurched back, red blood pluming in the air. But she didn't have time to celebrate as the rest of the soldiers quickly reshuffled their aim. The carpeted floor was positively shredded down to the wood and metal skeleton and the wall she was hiding behind shuddered from multiple impacts.

"Ghost?"

He shook his head, still too many bullets.

"Well do _something_!"

He cocked his head.

_Alright. _

One of the soldiers paused to roll a grenade down the hall. In the momentary lull of gunfire, Ghost leaped across the room, heading straight for her.

Stokes realized his plan too late. Her eyes widened in alarm, "Ghost! Don't you dare-" the rest of her protest disappeared with an _umph_ as Ghost tackled her, driving them both back-

-into the gaping chasm of the elevator shaft.

* * *

_A/N: aaaand…cliff hanger ending! Yes, I do realize I'll probabely be lynched for the adrupt ending but I was forced to break chapter eight up into smaller sections after it got too long. I'll try to get chapter nine up before college starts next week. _


	9. Interval 1: Out of the Frying Pan

He grabbed her and pushed the two of them into the empty shaft. the grenade's explosion echoing behind the two. For the life of him, Ghost couldn't understand why the Lieutenant screamed. Then there was a sickening rush of freefalling.

Stokes could feel his lithe legs wrapped around her waist, binding the two of them together, and then the assassin ejected his wristblades and pressed the flats of them against the steel cable, intending to use them as impromptu breaks to slow their descent.

Unfortunately, there were two things wrong with Ghost's plan. One, the narrow width of the blades provided very little in the way of braking.

And two, one of said blades was nothing more than a shortened piece of slagged metal.

Events flashed by very quickly after that.

Sparks erupted from the friction. They bit into the exposed skin on Keira's arms and neck like thousands of stinging ants. The sound of metal on metal was a banshee wail blasting straight into her eardrums.

Gravity ripped her heart up to her throat, launched her stomach down to the tips of her toes, and still they went faster. Ghost unhooked his legs and clamped the soles of his boots against the cable. The screech of metal diminished, the stench of burning synthetics mixed in with sparks as acrid smoke whipped up from the friction.

Then the bottom, a tumbling sprawl of limbs as the line ran out.

Keira landed hard enough to hurt, but Ghost's breaking attempts had slowed their speed enough that the lieutenant merely got all the wind blasted out of her lungs on impact with the unyielding concrete.

Ghost was more prepared. He leapt fearlessly from the cable, hitting the ground in a fluid roll to bleed off his momentum and came to rest in a graceful, martial arts like pose – feet spread in a low crouch, one hand resting on the ground the other stretched back.

The bastard even made falling look good.

He glanced over at the Lieutenant.

She was lying on her back staring up at the ceiling, making strange gulping noises with her mouth, as if she was trying to drink in the stale air.

He leaned over her, head tilted quizzically, as if he was saying _You were supposed to roll._

"Ghost." She croaked, "Next time…just take the stairs."

He shrugged and went to work forcing open the elevator doors at the bottom of the shaft. By the time he was finished, Stokes had recovered enough that moving actually sounded like a feasible idea.

Together the two stepped into what appeared to be the basement archives.

They were in a large room dominated by a maze of shelves stuffed with cardboard boxes, tattered log books, white plastic binders crammed with papers, discolored with age. Smaller boxes with rows and rows of old CDs and even more archaic floppy disks crowded the middle. The mirrored polish of humming air ventilation shafts reflected in the darkness as the vents twisted across the ceiling. Massive concrete pillars reared up to brace the ceiling, dimly lit by amber emergency lights.

Keira's hand clunked against something and she looked down to see a bright yellow chemical barrel. The words _flammable, highly volatile_ had been printed along the side. It was connected to a brick of green dough-like material.

_C4_.

With a sinking feeling in her gut, Stokes looked around and spotted more support columns in the faint light, each with their own nest of yellow barrels and explosive charges. Snake Fist really hadn't been kidding about the place being blown to hell. Whoever had laid these explosives knew what they were doing. They'd wired the charges and accelerants to the load bearing columns of this room, and probably the rest of the hospital. The shaped charges would go off; ripping through the columns. With nothing to hold them up, the floors would collapse on top each other, burying all the evidence beneath tons of concrete and twisted metal.

_And anyone unfortunate enough to still be inside._

"We need to pick up the pace." Stokes muttered.

Ghost didn't reply.

Stokes looked around, but all she could see were shadowed shapes, jutting from the darker black like crags in a cave.

Of the assassin there was nothing to be seen.

"…Ghost?" He'd been there just a second ago.

She stepped forward cautiously-

-and her boot landed on the ground with a squelch.

Feeling uneasy, Stokes flicked on the flashlight mounted to her gun. The bright glare of the light slashed apart the shadows in front of her and she panned the flashlight across the darkened room.

She almost wished she'd left it in the dark.

Judging by the blood and the…chunks, there were four, maybe five bodies that she could see. They all wore the blue camo-patterned combat fatigues and black tactical vests of ATC Black Ops. And they'd all, in a variety of diverse and gruesomely imaginative ways, been torn apart.

_What the hell had happened down here?_

As if in answer to her thoughts, her ears picked up a faint, whispering, hiss.

She aimed the Andra ahead at the empty aisle, but she couldn't tell where it was coming from. Her mouth opened to call out a challenge, but Kiera quickly checked herself. If it was whatever had killed those soldiers, the worst thing she could do was to let it know she was there.

_When in doubt, follow the trail of blood._ She grimaced. Yeah, because _that_ always ended well. The whispering continued, growing louder and garbled, like a madman gibbering to himself. There was an intersection in the rows of shelves ahead. The voice seemed to be coming from an alcove to the right. She pressed up against the crates and cardboard boxes, breathed slowly, and counted to three before pivoting around the corner.

Keira shuddered and quickly pulled the light away from the corpse lying slumped against the foot of the shelves. The corpse had a gaping, cavernous hole in his body from his pelvis to his neck. Someone, some_thing_ had eviscerated him, pulling apart the white bone of his ribs and scooping out the red meat and organs inside.

She forced herself to focus on something else before she lost her breakfast.

The source of the demonic whispering turned out to be nothing more than a military-grade radio clutched in one hand, still flicked to receiving. The other hand rested limply over an Andra submachine gun like her own.

Gingerly, she reached down and pulled the radio loose. His hand was warm, the fingers still pliable.

He hadn't been dead for long.

Stokes put _that_ particular thought on the backburner as she focused on listening in to the radio chatter.

"_Oscar Team calling in. Sector 7 has been cleared."_

"_Roger that, Zulu Team still hasn't checked in yet."_ And in one humorous exchange:

"_Helloooo…anybody home, Zulu team?_ _Uh, Zulu 6? You guys dead or something?" _There was a pause as the guy on the other end mulled over that thought.

"_Oh shit…uh Sarge? I think Zulu team's dead."_

Keira winced and jerked the radio away as an angry snarl bellowed out of the radio.

"_God-Daaamnit, Rookie! If you can't follow proper radio protocol, stay off the goddamned channel!" _The authoritative voice practically screamed NCO of some kind._"Zulu Team, if you jackasses are listening, get your backsides topside for extraction."_ and the radio went silent again.

She checked the submachine gun in the corpse's hand and pried the magazine out. To her pleasant surprise, it was still full, and further scrounging revealed four more flower box shaped submachine gun clips.

Five full magazines plus what was in her gun. Two hundred and sixty-eight rounds of ammunition.

In a hostile environment, with a stolen radio in one hand and the comforting weight of a fully loaded ammo pouch Stokes felt like the richest girl in the world. It was a miracle that she'd managed to find that much on just one body.

As she swapped out the magazines, feeling the satisfying clack of a fully loaded gun, she thought a little more about her good fortune, and came to a sobering realization.

The only reason the man had so much ammunition was that he'd never had the chance to even fire off a shot at whatever had killed him. So either he'd been incredibly incompetent, or whatever had killed him had been freakishly fast, not to mention strong.

_And all those bullets won't do you any good if you can't hit your target._

A whisper of movement tickled the back of her neck.

Stokes whipped the Andra up as something loomed out of the shadows behind her. Stokes caught a glimpse of glowing saucer eyes and black drenched claws grasping towards her.

Stoke's finger tightened on the trigger-

-and released just in time.

"Damnit Ghost!" she snarled "You know how close I was to shooting you?"

The bug-eyed monster was just Ghost, caught in the glare of her flashlight. His hands were outstretched in an over-dramatic, threatening pose, head hunched into the shoulders and his upper body bent towards her like he was about to scoop up a tasty snack.

Her heart felt like it might achieve terminal velocity and blast out of her chest. Stokes pressed a hand against her chest and glared at Ghost. "You scared the shit out of me, you know that?"

Something about her outraged yet terrified face sparked a feeling in the assassin. It started at the base of his stomach, a strange, fuzzy sensation. His muscles contracted, his shoulders started to shake. A strange noise came from his mask, an odd, sizzling _Sssh-sssh-sssh._

It sounded suspiciously like laughter.

Keira's face flushed an angry red, but her eyes narrowed dangerously, "You think this is funny?"

Ghost tried to look serious and contrite as he shook his head no.

It might have worked except she could see his chest was still shaking in silent mirth.

"Asshole." She growled.

With a level of restraint bordering on downright saintly, Stokes did not knee-cap him right then and there. Instead, she gave him a slit eyed stare, letting him know in no uncertain terms that payback would be coming and it would definitely be a bitch when it arrived.

Putting aside plans for revenge, the lieutenant turned back to the radio and angled the submachine gun's mounted light so it splashed across the LCD screen. Her hand thumbed the controls on the radio, trying to read off the numbers of what frequency the ATC black ops teams were using. If she could find that, she could radio it in to Beckett and the others, letting them listen in as well.

Ghost watched for a moment before growing bored and wandering over to the corpse. He hunkered back on his haunches and stared at the mess of flesh and bone, marveling at the speed and strength whatever had killed this prey must have possessed.

Curious, the assassin reached out and poked the exposed innards of the body, fascinated by the squelching sound his finger made.

He hesitated and shot a quick look at the lieutenant. She had her back turned to him and appeared not to have heard. More confidently now, he prodded the ripped open stomach, making more fascinating sounds.

_Squelch-squich squelch-squich._

"Ghost…" Stokes muttered distractedly, brow furrowed in concentration. The display screen on the radio was cracked, making it hard to read the frequency number.

_Squelch._

_Click._

"Jesus, Ghost, can't you be silent for one minute?" she hissed in frustration.

_Click…click-clack. _

Stokes froze in her work. That last sound had carried an echo.

"Ghost," she said, very quietly in the dark room, "Please tell me that was you."

Ghost shook his head mutely.

Somewhere in the dark maze around them, something began to scrape against the ground.

* * *

_A/N: Wow, this is the first time I've updated _any_ of my stories since college started._ _I was sitting on this chapter trying to make it better and better, but I think all I did was just delay it for four months. _


	10. Interval 1: Into the Fire

_Click_

_Click…click…click-clack._

Keira reached down and flicked off her flashlight, plunging their little alcove back into shadow. She waited a few minutes as the elusive sound continued to prowl around the room. The sounds continued, echoing across the room before fading away to a hungry silence. Slowly the pitch black lightened to dim shapes and spaces as her eyes adjusted. She looked around warily, but she couldn't see anything. Whatever it was, it was gone for now.

She leaned close to Ghost, covering her mouth with her hand to reduce the noise and murmured: "Fire exit, north wall."

His yellow eyes bobbed up and down in a nod and slowly she rose to her feet. Making her way by the mental compass in her head, she turned right and headed down the aisle, walking slowly and softly to avoid making noise.

They reached the end of the aisle without incident and took a left. The lurid red glow of the exit sign was Stoke's North Star. Each time they made a turn she made sure to fix that landmark in her mind before moving on. The last thing she wanted to do was get turned around in the dark. Especially not with whatever was lurking out there. Her mind conjured up images of unseen predators circling like sharks in the ocean of darkness around her. Any second now she'd see a flash of white teeth, a flicker of movement, or ice-cold claws grabbing her from behind-

_Stop it Stokes, now you're just psyching yourself out, focus on just getting out of here._

But there was a danger in just focusing on getting out. When you worried about big things, like a creepy nightmare hospital packed with enough explosives to create a small crater in the moon, or a couple hundred hostile private security who had no compunction against gunning down defenseless men and women…the little things slipped by. So you had to keep a balance, the big and little, because sometimes the little things were just as important.

Little things like a faint scuff of movement, past a row of blood smeared shelves. A ringing echo as something metal clattered in the dark-and was quickly muffled.

And the more obvious signs: the light at the end of the row that flickered as something dashed past it.

She felt Ghost lightly touch her shoulder, and the Delta Force soldier nodded in return. She didn't need his enhanced hearing or vision to know what the prickling hairs on her neck, and the twisted knot in her gut was telling her.

Still, she kept her slow, cautious pace. If the things in the dark didn't know where the two survivors were, a panicked run would only let them know where to go to find dinner. If they were being hunted, running would only provoke them into attacking sooner.

And then the captured radio, the one that had been quietly clipped to her belt, suddenly gave an ear-splitting shriek of static feedback. Her fingers fumbled frantically and mashed the volume down. For a moment she froze, thumping heart swallowed in a throat too small.

And then, from out of the shadows right next to her, something stirred softly.

_Click_

There were times to fight, and there were times when all you could do was just run like hell and hope you'd be fast enough. This was one of the latter situations.

The darkness around them erupted with snarls and gnashing teeth and the tempo of hardened claws striking on wood, tiles, concrete walls and metal shelves. The hellish sounds echoed and rebounded, growing louder and louder like a chorus of franticly pulsing drums. Something burst out of a gap between the shelves ahead of them. Keira got a glimpse of a nightmare face with too many teeth. Before she could react, or even think about shooting, the thing disappeared in a flash of sharp steel. Ghost wiped his blade clean with a flick of his wrist and kept running.

They turned the corner and the exit sign was suddenly there and gone as they smashed through the doors and hit the stairs at a dead run. Stokes took the gray slab steps three at a time. Below her the basement doors crashed open. She looked back, risking a quick glance.

Then she turned and pumped even more energy into her trembling legs, a split-second glance showing only scuttling man-sized nightmares. Sickly white, parchment-thin flesh rippling over lean muscles. Mouths bleeding wet red, too small to contain the jagged splinters of teeth caked with dried black blood and fingers whittled down to bone claws, click-clacking on the cold tile floors.

She reached the door first, slamming past it, into a lobby.

Ghost sailed through a heartbeat later, just a shimmer on the wind as his momentum carried him deeper into the room.

Stokes scrambled back on her heels, reversing direction so fast there were probably tire squeals. She threw her weight against the door and her hand scrambled for a lock to slide shut, just as something from the other side cannon balled into it.

Stokes was tougher than most people, but even Delta Force training and a stubborn as hell attitude couldn't change the fact that she was only a hundred and fifty pounds of flesh and equipment, and leverage could only do so much.

Physics was a bitch like that.

She held it shut for two shuddering impacts before the freaks discovered the push bar on their side of the door. The door started swinging open; boney hands and snapping jaws crowded at the opening. Her boots fought for traction on the slick tiles, but there was nothing to gain leverage with. A pale veined hand clawed through the widening gap. The bone points shredded through her vest and drew three slashes of bright red blood against her skin. Stokes hissed with pain, instinctively jerking back-

-and in this situation it was the worst thing she could have done.

She was knocked to the floor as the door slammed back on its hinges. Stokes took the brunt of the impact on her shoulders and rump, but her head still smacked painfully against the ground, dazing her for a few seconds. Seconds she didn't have.

The first crawler leaped, an explosive propulsion of muscles contracting together, carrying it high into the air, jagged claws extend out for a pounce-

-and he was promptly introduced to the uncomfortable tread of Ghost's combat boots as the assassin launched himself through the air. Like Keira, Ghost didn't weigh much and however acrobatic he was, a mid-air kick like that really didn't have a whole lot of speed going for it-nothing to brace against. However, his boots were pressed close together and his legs locked, and all that force was concentrated on the relatively small target that was the abomination's skull. In other words he hit with a hell of a lot more force than a 120 pound person should have normally.

Again, physics was a bitch like that.

The impact traveled up Ghost's legs, but his synthetic bones were a lot stronger and more flexible than the twisted man-freak's simple flesh and blood. The crawler was knocked back with a sickening crack. Ghost's own landing was rather graceless, landing flat on his ass right in front of the open door leading to the stairwell that was crammed with crawlers all eager to enjoy the two person buffet.

And then Stokes, still on her back, angled the Andra up and jammed the trigger down.

White muzzle flashes and deafening snaps drowned out the darkness. In the enclosed space the hollow point rounds scooped chunks of flesh out of the two crawlers closest to the door. They collapsed back lashing out in blind pain, and hitting only each other, sowing further chaos down the line.

The gunfire died away abruptly, the fifty round clip running dry in less than ten seconds, and all she had to show for it was two dead crawlers and a stairwell full of very pissed off mutant freaks. But again, Ghost was there to meet them. This time there was no fancy kick. One black gloved hand snatched the next crawler by the throat, the other hand opened said throat from one artery to the other, almost severing the head before tossing the body aside and grabbing the next with a simple economy of movement.

Stokes finished reloading, working the slide with a satisfying _clack_ and Ghost ducked back out of her line of fire. This time there was no wild splurge of ammo. The Andra coughed as Stokes fell into a crouched stance and fired short, controlled bursts into the stairwell. Three more crawlers dropped convulsing. Then an adrupt silence fell.

Keira rose to her feet and kept the gun pointed at the murky shadows of the stairwell for several tense seconds, but the receding sounds of bone claws clacking on concrete and animal squeals told her what her racing heart refused to believe.

They were actually retreating.

Apparently even the mentally destroyed minds of the crawlers still had enough animal intellect to not throw themselves blindly into certain death. Still, Keira waited until the last click of bone on metal had faded away before she approached the door to shut it. It was only after she made sure the fire escape door would stay shut that the lieutenant looked back.

_Jesus Christ…_

They were at the bottom of another lobby…and another massacre. However, unlike the basement, these bodies weren't ATC, they were clad in the remnants of nursing scrubs, doctor's coats, blue patient shifts. She'd seen dead civvies before, years ago on an extraction mission in a war-torn city. But never this many, never here, not so close to home. She wanted to look away, but the bodies were everywhere. In twos and threes, in big clusters and individual clumps. She started to count. She gave up after twenty.

An old patient slumped over in a wheelchair, leaking cold blood from a dozen wounds. A big man in a janitor's coveralls, beefy long arms still outstretched in a shielding embrace over two blood drenched women in nurse's scrubs. A small ring of corpses, hands clutched together, desperate for human contact, desperate not to die alone.

Her foot knocked against something, and Stokes looked down to see the matte black finish of a combat shotgun. The orange sights had been knocked askew, the grip was slick with bloody handprints. It wasn't until Ghost made a cautious little burst of static that she realized she was shaking. Not from fear though, or exhaustion. Because the dead men, the dead women, the dead doctors and patients and nurses…

Crawlers hadn't killed them. Crawlers hadn't lined them up, forced them to their knees. Hadn't placed those neat little holes, precise pellets of lead. Crawlers at least had the fucking excuse of being _rabid_. Innocent casualties were a tarnished fact about war. Sometimes a soldier reacted quickly to a potential hostile situation; sometimes it was a case of bad intel.

Sometimes, it was deliberate.

"Bastards." The word was flat, exhausted, weak. "God-damned motherfucking, shit-eating…bastards." Her voice trailed off because there wasn't any way to describe it. No name, no curse in any language, that was vile enough to describe the men who'd done this.

* * *

He felt like he had to understand, like he was missing something, or merely inadequate. He stared at the room, studied the bodies intently, trying to understand why after killing so many people, the Lieutenant was so distressed about _these_ bodies. Ghost knelt next to one, an older female in a pink scrub. He stared at her face, the slack, slightly surprised look, eyes widened in death, jaw still slack, muscles still pliable. He turned his head this way and that, walked around the body, knelt by it, poked and prodded it, looking for physical clues that could shed light on the answer.

_Nope, still nothing._

Maybe it was a defect in the Lieutenant's genes – but Ghost strongly hoped it wasn't.

He didn't want her to be defective.

Something echoed in the room, strangely muffled like it came behind the walls. It was so faint that Ghost barely heard it. Judging from the Lieutenant's morose face, she hadn't heard it at all. It might have just been a rat in the vent, but it didn't matter. They'd already stayed here too long.

Ghost started to turn, and then he heard a wet cough. The assassin paused and studied the area with his visor. In a dark, recessed corner by the foot of the stairs, he spotted a man, hunched over in obvious pain. Intrigued, the assassin drifted over, until he stood above the wounded man.

"Help me." The man rasped. His face wasn't too remarkable, a little pale from blood lose but otherwise average, even a little baby-faced. He wore a white polo shirt, military cap, black slacks, and the tattered remnants of a Kevlar vest. A Rakow AT-14 nine millimeter was clasped in one hand, but the slide was locked back, empty of ammo.

Not the most challenging target but it was the thought that counted. Ghost ejected his wrist-blade and knelt over the man.

"Wait, Ghost."

Ghost sighed, a breezy gust of spitting static. The wrist-blade retracted. The Lieutenant walked past him and knelt down next to the wounded man. He seemed not to have noticed how close he'd come to dying, or dying quicker.

"…you a medic?" He asked, "…I think I've been shot."

She studied his face intently, as if, like Ghost, she too, might be able to find the answers she sought. "Who are you?"

"Me?" the pallid face wrinkled, brows furrowing in confusion, "…Bryan. Bryan…ah, Flass. Security."

"Well Bryan, I'm here to help, but first, you need to tell me what happened."

Bryan nodded slowly, head bobbing with fatigue. "Evacuation alarms started ringing. Men with guns showed up…ATC guys, like me. Said…we had to get everybody…everybody to the lobbies…for the evacuations, you know?" He coughed, blood flecking the stained surface of his shirt. "We went door to door…and the soldier guys, they were real nice, real polite."

"Go on." A pit started to form in Keira's stomach.

"They helped round up the doctors, and the patients…one of them even helped…my friend Rachel, sweet girl, you know? He helped her wheel a gurney down here. Everybody…lined up, by the elevators…everything was going smooth…no trouble at all. Rachel…joked about someone pulling…a, a fire alarm, like a…prank, you know?" The man shook his head, "We were fine…I don't know why it happened."

"What happened?" She asked.

"Someone started shooting." He shook his head, "It wasn't like…the movies. Sounded almost like little poppers, snapping off. People started screaming, and, and I didn't know what to do, you know? So I…I hid. I stumbled behind the stairs…and I…I just watched." His voice caught, eyes squeezing shut, something wet dripping beneath them. "They shot the ones closest to the elevators first. Some people just dropped, squirming on the ground, screaming, God-damned _awful_ screaming."

Ghost could sympathize with the man. The screamers were the worst, so loud. He got distracted by a faint rustle. The assassin cocked his head, only half-listening to the conversation.

"Anyway…I was back here. And, and I see Rachel. S-she's on her belly, and she's just scooting her way through all this blood on the floor, keeping low, so they don't see her." The words came faster, spilling out, "She had…had one of the patients with her…and she was making for the fire escapes. Then this g-guy with a shotgun comes strolling down the line. He puts a boot on the patient's back and he just…blows his brains out and Rache s-she looks up, and she sees me and here I am, fucking Security, a-and I'm doing shit." He sucked in a rattling gasp, blood seeping from his tattered vest.

"S-s-so when the man stops to pump the slide. I come up behind him, and I just start shooting." He laughed at that, a gargled retch of blood and air, "D-didn't e-e-even, aim…just...point and shoot. Think I winged him or something, 'cause he went down...something hit me like a…like a hammer s-so I crawled back here…to catch my breath."

He looked at her, and something must have sunk through the fatigue and blood loss. "You're not a medic."

"No" she agreed quietly.

The security guard nodded slowly, "That's alright. D-don't think I need o-one." He looked up and some childish fear filled his eyes, "y-you gonna…go l-like the other l-lady?"

"What other lady?"

Bryan shrugged, "s-some o-older lady…in a b-brown suit."

Keira froze, "Aristide? Genevieve Aristide? "

"The president? Shit," he snorted, "…didn't even r-recognize my fucking boss...that's…that's funny." His voice trailed off, his head slumped against his chest.

"When did you see her?" Keira grabbed his shoulders and shook him, "Hey! Can you hear me?"

The guard didn't stir. Stoke's intent face eased with a reluctant sigh. She wiped her hand over his face, closing his eyes. Ghost watched this ritual with fascination. His eyes lingered on the guard's dead face, wondering what possible meaning could have been behind that. The Lieutenant stared past him-and then her eyes widened with shock.

"Son of a bitch!"

Ghost's head whipped up.

"Did you see that?"

He frowned. _See what_? The top of the stairs was deserted.

"Aristide! She was just there!" The Lieutenant surged to her feet, filled with a sudden, almost manic energy. "C'mon Ghost!"

Ghost shrugged and followed her, feeling confused. How had he not noticed Aristide? They reached the top of the stairs and turned the corridor. Again, there was nothing to meet his gaze, the corridor was deserted, save for the elevator at the end of the hall.

The Lieutenant swore in anger, "she must have taken the elevator!"

Ghost tilted his head, considering it before giving another shrug. After all it was certainly possible and as long as they were moving again, he didn't care. The two hustled quickly down the glass walled walkway that snaked around the second floor. The Lieutenant had one hand to her ear, talking quickly to another soldier, a Beckett, about Aristide. Ghost jogged easily beside her, keeping his attention focused on their surroundings.

Even so, he almost didn't hear the skittering in time.

Ghost hesitated, making a questioning warble.

"Ghost?" Keira started to turn towards him-

-and then Ghost's foot lashed out, sweeping her feet out from under her. He had exactly two seconds to note the look of surprised betrayal on her face. The ceiling panel in front of them smacked the floor as a crawler dropped through. At the same time, a second crawler burst through the crawlspace running behind the wall.

Ghost caught the first crawler and checked its forward charge with a snap of its neck. He dropped the corpse but even as he raised his hands, the second Crawler slammed into him. Unprepared, the impact drove Ghost onto his back. The crawler gibbered crazily at him, bone claws scrambling over his slick suit while his hands grappled with the crawler, trying to keep those same claws from gaining purchase and puncturing the suit.

The crawlers had been repelled in the lobby entrance, but they'd learned the painful lesson about narrow chokepoints and soldiers with guns. After a few minutes of licking their wounds, the crawlers had worked their way stealthily through the crawlspaces and ceiling panels of the room. They'd moved so slowly, so quietly, that even Ghost hadn't been aware.

And when they struck, they all struck at once. Holes were punched through the walls, ceiling panels smacked to the ground, floor vents erupted up as Abominations poured through them.

Keira unholstered her Seegert as two more crawlers dropped out of the ceiling crawlspace. Unlike her first encounter, she didn't hesitate, pumping the trigger and emptying the clip into their pale flesh-starved bodies until they dropped with dying convulsions. She looked down the stairs and saw the flood of crawlers on the first floor. She reached the elevator and slapped the call-button. Unlike last time, the doors slid open almost immediately and she stepped through. "Ghost!" she snapped, "Come on!"

Ghost finally got his hands wrapped around the crawler's skull. He twisted the head sharply to the right and dropped the corpse. As he passed a large hole in the glass wall, crawler hand shot out. It latched onto his ankle. Off-balanced, the assassin was knocked off his feet. He landed on the floor and snapped his arms out, grabbing the sides of the hole as the crawlers tried to tug him through.

_"Ghost!"_

His yellow eyes looked at her. He nudged his head at the elevator as if to say _go_

And then he let go.


End file.
